Dear fans, friends, and followers…
Season’s Greetings to all, whatever that might mean to you at this time of year. (If you need a little inspiration to get into the mood, you could do worse than this classic.)
But the big news since our last installment is all about Mr. Guthrie.
Robin Guthrie returns
I’m not resting on my laurels, and I’ve got quite a lot of laurels to rest upon.
In September, we shared the news that founding Cocteau Twins member Guthrie had returned to releasing new music with the debut of his EP Mockingbird Love, released on his Soleil Après Minuit label and available via Bandcamp, Darla Records, and elsewhere. Since then, he’s made a handful of “orphans” (as he calls them) available for purchase and download on his Bandcamp page. Initially, “Silverbell,” “Ajo,” “Providence,” and “Septime” were to be available for a limited time only, but he’s since made them available indefinitely. Get them while you can!
Of course, Guthrie’s centrepiece in all this is his new full-length LP, Pearldiving, which was officially released in November. In a recent interview with The Yorkshire Post (a read we highly recommend), Guthrie explained that, in the wake of the sudden loss of longtime friend and collaborator Harold Budd in 2020, “I thought, ‘I should just do this, what could go wrong?’ So I decided to clear out my studio and got rid of loads of things and just started afresh, writing and creating music [again].”
“The first thing that came together was Mockingbird Love—when those four titles came together I thought, ‘that’s the one’—and by that time I was thinking, ‘I’ve got music that I’ve done over the last ten years that I’ve never released,’ so I started putting those out on the internet for a week, stuff that had never found a home.”
Reflecting on his place in the music pantheon, Robin went on, “I’m not resting on my laurels, and I’ve got quite a lot of laurels to rest upon. The idea of, ‘We’re going to release your record but it’s going to be in four months,’ I can’t be bothered with that, and in the end you’re going to get like, no percent off it. I can live for my music, thank you very much, if I’m not giving it away to all the intermediaries, all the distributors. I was looking at a 400 per cent mark-up on my CDs if they come out on Amazon. That kind of thing has nonplussed me and made me quite ambivalent about releasing music. My error being that there’s actually people that like what I do.”
Amplify had this to say: “Guthrie returns to his signature instrumental genre, evoking an atmosphere and sound so instantly recognizable, and yet so very personal. From the slow-burning opening notes of ‘Ivy’ to the last swelling distortion of ‘The Amber Room,’ Pearldiving is an album of delicacies, delights, darkness and light.”
…and there’s more
Just this month, Robin followed up Pearldiving with another EP, Riviera, also available via Bandcamp. Guthrie promises yet more to come, and he has become much more active on social media again—particularly Facebook—but with active profiles on Instagram and Twitter, as well.
If you’ve not been an active devotée of Guthrie’s many solo recordings since the demise of Cocteau Twins, AllMusic.com’s Ned Raggett has put together a handy guide to his solo discography for Bandcamp.
To hear Robin go into detail about his current setup, new music output, and other topics—though not a lot about those Cocteau years—check out this podcast interview on “Smells Like Infinite Sadness” with Michael Taylor.
Simon’s charity draw results
We sent out a special edition message to let you know about Simon Raymonde’s charity draw in support of Clock Tower Sanctuary. We’re happy to report that the event raised a total of £7,794 with 398 supporters in 44 days! Sincere thanks to everyone who participated.
Those @MrSimonRaymonde tweets
You should follow Simon on Twitter, not only for some cool Cocteau posts like these, but also for the excellent Bella Union bands he’s promoting.
In other news…
Cocteau Twins featured prominently in a recent Uncut Magazine special publication, the Ultimate Genre Guide: Shoegaze. The 122-page, full-colour book includes a retrospective of the band and their discography by Stephen Trousse
, a reprint of a story from the 26 May 1984 issue of Melody Maker, and a review of a live performance at Victoria Palace, London, on 26 February 1984 (and a handful of photos we’ve surely all seen before).
The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess finally published his deluxe hardcover book, The Listening Party. It’s a beautifully curated collection of his 100 favourite Twitter listening parties he’s hosted over the last couple of years—including a memorable one, co-hosted by Simon Raymonde, for Heaven or Las Vegas. You can replay the event on Tim’s website.
In October, Simon’s band Lost Horizons released a new single, “Florida,” featuring Bella Union artist Penelope Isles.
That’s all for now.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Happy holidays and Happy New Year to you all. Stay safe.
Au Riviera,
Michael
Corrections: This post has been edited since the email was sent out. We added the paragraph about Uncut’s “Shoegaze” genre guide, and corrected an error—Ned Raggett is affiliated with AllMusic.com, not Discogs.com.