7. Cocteau TwinsTreasure

They absolutely just got me, in about 1986, a couple of years after this album came out. The funny thing is that I found a Cocteau Twins T-shirt in that same laundrette where I saw The Smiths on TV. It felt like an angel had left me this really tatty ‘Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops’ T-shirt sitting on top of a dryer –it was like the Celestial Laundrette! The design fascinated me; I whisked it away.

The Cocteaus were a band that just kept going up and up in my estimations – to this day I have listened to the Cocteau Twins more than any other group, with the exception of Felt. They are terrific and they are from Scotland! I don’t know what to think about them – you don’t stop to analyse them, you let it wash over you. It casts a spell – one album, Victorialand, was so dreamy, I listened to it for one entire summer when I finally left college and worldly ambition. I was hopeless around women, so the closest I had to having a sensual experience being around women was listening to the Cocteau Twins! It all seemed very sexual, Treasure just seemed laden down with the kind of sex that I wanted to get into. It was a weird time…