The Moon and the Melodies

The Cocteau Twins originally connected with American avant-garde composer Harold Budd for a documentary that aimed to pair musicians from different genres. The documentary never aired, but Budd and the Cocteaus decided to continue their collaboration in the form of The Moon and the Melodies, a full-length 4AD album from 1986. Elizabeth Fraser's trademark vocals appear on only four songs—“She Will Destroy You,” “Eyes Are Mosaics,” “Sea, Swallow Me,” and “Ooze Out and Away, Onehow”—all of which are outstanding embodiments of the vintage Cocteau Twins aesthetic. The rest of the album is better affiliated with the contemplative ambient music Budd had been making for decades, both on his own and in collaboration with Brian Eno. The presence of the Cocteaus gives the songs a surging intensity that probably wouldn’t have existed in a typical Budd solo work. For all the existential edgelessness of “Memory Gongs” and “Bloody and Bunt,” one can feel the insistence of Robin Guthrie’s guitar, emitting a pull from several miles below the songs' surfaces.