The Moon and the Melodies: Vinyl LP

Label: 4AD
Release Date: 9th August

This might make Rick Beato's head spin but there's a generation finding the glory of Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd and it's a very good thing. Seeing their popularity and relevance taken to places not seen before and maybe this long-awaited reissue wouldn't happen if it wasn't for the crystalline majesty of 'The Moon and the Melodies' clicking with a new generation of shoegazers and dreampoppers. 

On 23 August, almost forty years after it was initially released, The Moon and the Melodies by Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd is being reissued on vinyl for the first time – remastered, from the original tapes, by Robin Guthrie himself.

The Moon and the Melodies is a singular record within the Cocteau Twins’ catalogue – unusually ethereal, even by their standards, and largely instrumental, guided by the free-form improvisations of Harold Budd, an ambient pioneer who had drifted into their orbit as if by divine intervention. Building on the atmospheric bliss of Victorialand, released earlier the same year, it signaled a possible future for the trio, yet it was a path they’d never take again.

Over the ensuing years, The Moon and the Melodies has attracted a passionate fan base. Its most atmospheric tracks routinely turn up in ambient DJ sets. ‘Sea, Swallow Me’ is one of the Cocteau Twins’ most streamed songs on Spotify, having found a new life on TikTok, where it serves as the soundtrack to innumerable expressions of hard-to-express melancholy.

For such a low-key affair, the album casts a long shadow – but Raymonde believes the record’s uniqueness stems directly from its humble, unpremeditated origins. “It captured a moment in time between friends that are enjoying making music together. Really, that’s the essence of it.”

Tracklisting

A1. Sea, Swallow Me
A2. Memory Gongs
A3. Why Do You Love Me?
A4. Eyes are Mosaics
B1. She Will Destroy You
B2. The Ghost Has No Home
B3. Bloody and Blunt
B4. Ooze Out and Away, Onehow