One Paragraph on Cocteau Twins

My sleep pattern loosens on weekends. I take sleep very seriously. I enjoy being in the hypnogogic state. I enjoy sleeping. I enjoy dreaming. I can comfortably sleep for 10, sometimes 11, hours. This means, by the time I reach Sunday, I often don’t get myself down until after midnight. Last night (a Sunday) I found my thoughts occupied with Cocteau Twins. I'm a fan of the albums they did at their height but I’m by no means a scholar. I find myself using a billion words to describe how I’m at a complete loss to describe them. The first time I heard Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals, I had to stop. It was too strange a sonic territory, her voice gliding up scales and finding its way down in the most circuitous way possible. Understand: I’m no wuss when it comes to strange music. I’ve spent my adult life listening to the most abrasive avant-garde noise imaginable. But I don’t really feel like I listen to Cocteau Twins. It’s more like I absorb them via osmosis. I have a very basic understanding of music theory: I know what a time signature is, I know what a chord and scale is, I understand what a verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure is. But I have no idea what’s actually happening in Cocteau Twins’ songs. It’s as if they defy the rules of physics. It’s as if, like coming up from sleep, a few seconds feel like hours and 10 hours feel like a minute. The only other band that comes close to this is the first two My Bloody Valentines albums, but really I mean Loveless. It’s as if Elizabeth is channeling the dream world and, in so doing, warps reality around her. Then I fell asleep.