Cocteau Twins set up their own studio and finally got distribution in the US with the indecipherable ethereal elation of this lush and lanquid pop dream. Remaining on independent 4AD label, the band signed a major-label deal with Capitol Records. In the meantime, multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde, who had been unable to work on their previous album 'Victorialand', returned to join Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie for 'Blue Bell Knoll'. The band produced the sessions at September Sound in Twickenham, England with Fraser on vocals, Guthrie on guitar, and Raymonde on bass guitar.
Fraser would explain her unique lyrical style: "I've just recently realized that I'm a very secretive person, that I'm constantly covering up for myself. I'm only just realizing how much. I don't really know what's happening. I hope it doesn't mean that I won't allow myself to do more things like 'Blue Bell Knoll'. I'd like to be able to do everything. You see, on that album, I was still expressing the same things. I was still feeling the same feelings, but I wasn't getting caught up in them. I was just feeling into a fucking microphone...It's amazing though, yeah, I mean that's...I mean really the records are...a representation of our coping skills...and I think...I was very much in denial...and I think that you can hear that on the album ['Blue Bell Knoll']...you know, not one word can you grasp...giving anything away...it just wasn't allowed...What they are are words that I've taken from...maybe seen written down...in a language that I don't understand, and liking them...and maybe...making new words as well out of them. I mean I've got reams and reams of words that I don't have a clue what they mean, but...I wanted them because, I knew I'd be able to express myself without giving anything away...The catch is I can barely talk English, isn't it? I quite like that. Combining words in different languages that I couldn't understand just meant that I could concentrate on the sound and not get caught up in the meaning...See, I find that mine [lyrics] don't have any meanings. They're not proper. Although I've got a great dictionary of them. It's like the Cockney rhyming slang or something. Writers like John Lennon. Writers that just kind of made up their own portmanteaux that caught on and people still use them. They don't mean anything, though, that's the thing. You know all the transcendent sounds. It's all sound all the way through...[the dictionary] is how I got some of the words. And then I got to the stage where, I don't know, something just came in. My life was a fucking mess...and I just couldn't carry on. I mean, it would have been so easy to do that. 'Cause after 'Blue Bell Knoll', which was really the easiest, the easiest I've ever done to make a record...I just couldn't keep going that way. I guess that was the start of learning to be aware of what was going on and what I was responsible for."
'Blue Bell Knoll' found its way to number one hundred and nine in the US, fifteen on the UK album chart, and number one on the UK independent album chart.
http://www.cocteautwins.com/
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Blue+Bell+Knoll/170339
"Blue Bell Knoll" – 3:24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oespMmWnDo
"Athol-Brose" – 2:59
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a6NzSuUosI
"Carolyn's Fingers" – 3:08
went to number two on the US modern rock tracks chart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhGoZLudKyk
"For Phoebe Still a Baby" – 3:16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQB4-IUJGU
"The Itchy Glowbo Blow" – 3:21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWx4AZ7OUOA
"Cico Buff" – 3:49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-UGXfSiW8
"Suckling the Mender" – 3:35
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5HgIC3nIjk
"Spooning Good Singing Gum" – 3:52
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK9ULgXuAE4
"A Kissed Out Red Floatboat" – 4:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjrjtRsZnyA
"Ella Megalast Burls Forever" – 3:39
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udeu-X5QdFk
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