V1 Lullabies To Violaine: Sing [Best of]

Lullabies was the Cocteau Twins first EP, released in Autumn 1982 a couple of months after their debut album Garlands, and Violaine marked the final release by the band in the summer of 1996. Now that the lavish 4CD box set has sold out, the discs have been made available in two double-CD sets, of which the first represents their 8 year association with Four AD, and the second their period with Fontana. This distinction is less marked in America, where albums from Blue Bell Knoll onward were all on Capitol.
Volume One largely replaces the lavish and extremely expensive CD box set of singles and EPs that appeared in 1991, which marked the debut of most of the tracks on CD, as all their singles and EPs prior to Iceblink Luck had been vinyl releases only, and only a few of the lead tracks had appeared on albums. Most of the discs from the set were then released individually, though an exclusive four-track disc of rarities was not.
Though less lavish, this attractive package contains the vast majority of the contents of The Singles Collection, on two discs averaging an hour apiece. All tracks have been mastered by Robin Guthrie with Walter Coelho at Masterpiece and where they sound dissimilar to the previous CD versions, they are in my view improved, with greater clarity in the detail.
There are no previously released rarities from vinyl and cassette compilations, including those from The Singles Collection four-track disc.
The one exception to this is Orange Appled, which began life on a Melody Maker give-away 7" vinyl EP in 1986. It was added in 1990 to the new CD version of Love's Easy Tears and retains its position here. I imagine a disc that did collect those odds and ends and added items like the NME version of Ivo and the In Our Angelhood demo from the Pleasantly Surprised cassette would be snapped up pretty pronto.
Contrarily, the extended 12" mix of Peppermint Pig (the version broadcast by John Peel in the 1983 Festive Fifty, where it was voted to no. 28 by listeners) was added to the CD EP release but is not included here.
Furthermore, two of the tracks are included in previously unreleased alternative versions. Aikea-Guinea appears in slightly different mixes everytime it is released, as the beautiful counter-melody sung in the background by Elizabeth Fraser becomes more extensive and further forward in the mix, quite subtly on The Pink Opaque, more noticeably on Stars And Topsoil, and here competing for dominance with the main vocal. Secondly, the annoying fade-in start has been abandoned - a big improvement as far as I am concerned.
Both versions of Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops, the 7" and 12" mixes, have been dropped in favour of a new mix which most closely resembles the 12" version but without the tinkly-bells and vocals at the start, and remixed particularly to feature a previously buried guitar part. Again, I like the new mix but it does mean that the definitive 12" mix (as also played by Peel in 1984 when it made no. 2 in that year's Festive Fifty) is unavailable now that the CD EP is out of print.
Strongly recommended, though, especially if you only have the albums. A different mix of Sugar Hiccups had appeared on Head Over Heels, and Iceblink Luck was also on Heaven Or Las Vegas. All the others were single or EP releases only, though some have since been included on compilations.

After all this time, I finally have those early non-album Cocteau tracks from the 80's on two tight, pristine and affordable CDs (with some notable exceptions - see the review below by Laurence Upton who offers detailed commentary on exactly which songs and different versions made the final cut).

I expect the reason it took so long for this compilation to come out was out of deference to the serious fans who painstakingly collected all of these songs. Some people are no doubt unhappy that some of these previously rare songs have become so readily available, but I think they should drop the elitist attitude and be happy that more people are able to enjoy this great music. I myself had a few of these EPs on vinyl, but I much prefer hearing them on CD without all those noisy dust particles I could never get out of the grooves.

This collection effectively traces the band's evolution from their darker, harder-edged beginnings to the gorgeous, lush atmospheres of their peak and on to the more polished, pop-friendly sounds they would produce by the end of the decade. Some songs here are clearly better than others, but great ones abound ("Hitherto," "Pepper-Tree," "Pink Orange Red," etc.), representing the Twins at their very best. Plus, it's just really cool having such an essential document of the Cocteau Twins' history at my fingertips in such a compact little package. Therefore, I rate LULLABIES TO VIOLAINE, VOLUME 1 five stars.

Don't get me wrong. I am not critiquing the quality of the songs themselves. I like Cocteau Twins and there are some outstanding track selections on this CD. However, the mastering of the songs on this CD is HORRIBLE!! All the songs are smashed and compressed with digital clipping so that there are no dynamics and the result is just a painful wall of noise. Outraged at how the Cocteau Twins catalog was handled for this CD, I immediately looked up in the CD booklet who the idiot was that mastered this CD, and ironically it turned out to be Robin Guthrie himself. =/ Apparently sometimes musicians shouldn't tamper with mixing consoles if they don't know what the heck they're doing.

Play this CD on a proper stereo and you'll hear what I'm talking about. All the sonic textures that make up the Cocteau Twins sound are just destroyed by severe digital clipping and compression. Open up the CD tracks in any audio editing program and look at the waveforms. You won't believe your eyes. And to add insult to injury, it looks like after Robin cranked up the amplitude on these tracks and clipped the signals, he then decreased the amplitude and added some headroom. Hard evidence that he didn't know what the hell he was doing and simply took control of the mastering responsibilities for this CD out of vanity rather than technical ability.

All I can say is, there are great tracks on this CD, but look elsewhere for better sounding versions of them.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 11 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars