I listened to Stars & Topsoil for the first time while waiting for my train home at Wimbledon Station. It seemed strangely adapted to the situation. Listening to any Cocteau Twins record is like watching time go by without being affected in any way by it. Time has passed since they released Blind Dumb Deaf, their first single. Eighteen years to be precise. The song though, is a fresh as it must have been then. I say “must have been”, because I only came to listen to the Cocteaus at the end of the eighties.

I came across the Twins by chance really. I knew of the name, but never had the curiosity to go any further. The first album I happened to listen to was Pink Opaque, a compilation of EPs, album tracks and unreleased material. Strangely enough, what initially captured my imagination was not Liz’s voice, that would come later, but the hypnotic bass line on Wax & Wane. I had troubles to deal with the voice. This was like nothing I’ d ever heard before, and I had to play the record a couple of times before I could familiarise myself with this un-earthy voice, and start learning to appreciate it. That’s when I really fell in love with the Cocteaus. In the space of a few weeks, I’d bought all their albums, from Garlands to Blue Bell Knoll, and was frenetically putting as many tracks as I could on tapes so I could take them with me, anywhere, everywhere.

A few months later, Heaven Or Las Vegas was released, and remains to this day, one of my favourite albums of all time. I would wake up every day, for weeks, listening to Cherry-Coloured Funk, Pitch The Baby and Iceblink Luck. I loved the multi-layered vocals, the guitar effects, and still, these bass lines. I never tried to make sense of the lyrics. And that’s what fascinating about the Cocteaus: there is space for imagination in there songs. Not unlike an impressionist painting, everything is suggested, what you make of it is your own choice.

Stars & Topsoil compiles some of the finest songs from the 4AD period, from early releases to Heaven Or Las Vegas. Not a best of as such, just a voyage through different moments of their recordings with the label. Every fan will regret the absence of some tracks, but none of them would ditch any of the songs featured here. 

The departure of the Cocteau Twins from 4AD to Fontana, after Heaven Or Las Vegas, would lead to their less imaginative album, Four-Calendar Café. And then there was Milk And Kisses, and an album half recorded that would remain unreleased. 

These days, Simon manages Bella Union, the label originally set up to release the Cocteaus’ recordings, Robin gives him a hand, as well as producing others, and working with his new band, and Liz is recording her first solo album. They might never work together again, their lives have gone separate ways, their legacy is this compilation, a good introduction for the ones discovering the band, a souvenir album for the fans.