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This book examines Cocteau Twins'' Blue Bell Knoll to dive deep on the value of artistic ambiguity, the limits of language, and what we can learn about creative practice from this once-in-a-lifetime band. Throughout the 80s and 90s Cocteau Twins defined dream pop and opened the door for shoegaze. Robin Guthrie''s reverb-soaked guitar sound and production set the template for a generation, while Elizabeth Fraser''s mesmerising voice and mysterious lyricism beguiled listeners. Blue Bell Knoll was their fifth album and their first to be released on a major label in the US. The lead single ''Carolyn''s Fingers'' remains their biggest hit. And yet this album represents the band at their most unknowable; the songs inscrutable and the lyrics entirely indecipherable, while somehow being deeply emotive.So often, music is understood through lyrical analysis or framed by what we know about the musicians'' lives. Famously reserved in interviews, Cocteau Twins offered up neither. Their belief was that music can express something beyond the capabilities of language. Which poses the question: what does it mean to really know a song - is it simply to feel something?>
List of contents
1. Blue Bell Knoll
2. Meanings untethered
3. Backwards, butterflies and foreign tongues
4. Guthrie's wall of sound
5. Collected fragments of Cocteau Twins press
6. Punk, press and awkward silence
7. A band nearly anonymous
8. Visions in sound
9. Celestial insecurities
10. Feel perpetual
Acknowledgements Bibliography Notes
About the author
Chris Tapley is based in Glasgow, Scotland. His writing has been published by The List, The Skinny, The Line of Best Fit, thi wurd magazine, the Scottish Writers’ Centre, and commended for the Costa Short Story Award.
