The 1986 collaboration between dream pop cornerstone Cocteau Twins and ambient music innovator Harold Budd established a comingling of approaches that endures as a stylistic signpost for countless listeners who remain enchanted by the ethereal. That record, The Moon and the Melodies, has been remastered by Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie from the original tapes for its first vinyl reissue since its initial release; then and now, the label responsible is 4AD.
Well received in the music press when first released, The Moon and the Melodies was a solid seller for what was essentially a hybrid of Budd’s avant-garde sensibility and Cocteau Twins’ post-punk lushness (dream pop as a genre didn’t exist yet). As 4AD has observed, the record has subsequently (and understandably) gathered a passionate following (it doesn’t seem to have ever been out of print on compact disc) as it essentially cleaves Cocteau Twins’ full-length output into two halves. It’s safe to claim it’s Budd’s highest profile work.
More interesting perhaps is that over time, critical viewpoints on The Moon and the Melodies have often settled into polite acceptance, with assessments that the album is fine but not amongst the highpoints in either Budd’s or Cocteau Twins’ catalogs. Some of this modest esteem possibly extends from the feelings of Guthrie himself, who said “it turned out more like four songs that sounded like us and four songs that sounded like him, which wasn’t really the plan” (it’s important to add that’s he’s not knocking the LP).
But so what if the two sides of this collaboration don’t gel seamlessly and flow forth as one entity across the set’s eight pieces. The Moon and the Melodies is still engaging from start to finish as it turned on a bunch of ’80s whippersnappers in Bauhaus t-shirts to Budd (in turn providing a gateway into ambient) and informed just as many high-end stereo snobs, who in the mid-’80s were devouring the work of Budd and Eno and Hassell, etc. for breakfast, that the Cocteau Twins should be taken seriously.
It’s important to point out that The Moon and the Melodies was credited to the four individuals who made it: Budd, Guthrie, Simon Raymonde, and Elizabeth Fraser (the only other contributor was Richard Thomas of 4AD labelmates Dif Juz, who plays saxophone on three tracks and drums on one). The promotion of the reissue zeros in on the Cocteau Twins and Budd while appropriately retaining the individual crediting in the cover design.
As a showcase for Fraser’s striking vocals, opener “Sea, Swallow Me” will immediately dispel any preconceptions regarding this record’s general direction. Loaded with big ’80s-style beats, the song is a glistening post-punk gem. The Moon and the Melodies has been described as likeable background music, but “Sea, Swallow Me” doesn’t easily fit this depiction.
The next track “Memory Gongs” delivers a sharp contrast, extending to over seven minutes sans vocals. This is obviously one of Budd’s pieces, but the tension and dark edge undercuts the stereotype that early ambient music is one left turn away from some dude blowing a bamboo flute in a treehouse. “Why Do You Love Me?” gets nearer to a typical collaborative blend, though Fraser is absent vocally. She swings back into the thick of it in “Eyes Are Mosaics,” another track where the rhythm reverberates large (very much foreground music).
“She Will Destroy You” extends the mode of “Eyes Are Mosaics” to open side two, and it’s really quite stunning how fresh this music still sounds, even with the ’80s production values front and center. “The Ghost Has no Name” also stretches out to over seven minutes as the presence of saxophone can bring Budd’s debut The Pavilion of Dreams to mind. But Budd’s work is sharper here, more representative of a guy who was raised in a desert. The brief and very pretty “Bloody and Blunt” follows and “Ooze Out and Away, Onehow” shimmers forth into the closing spot with a final burst forth at the end.
Few records are as engaging at 38 years of age as The Moon and the Melodies is right now. A tip of the cap to Budd (RIP), Guthrie, Fraser, and Raymonde.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
