ALBUM REACTION: Cocteau Twins — Four Calendar Café

I don't care how many calendars are in this café, it's just a really nice café.

Intro - 0:00
01. Know Who You Are at Every Age - 2:00
02. Evangeline - 3:34
03. Bluebeard - 4:58
04. Theft, and Wandering Around Lost - 6:35
05. Oil of Angels - 7:57
06. Squeeze-Wax - 9:15
07. My Truth - 11:09
08. Essence - 12:51
09. Summerhead - 14:16
10. Pur - 15:36
Outro - 16:54

music by City Girl

►My new album!

[XxFcoJxX]

The mood that can be felt in this album is related to what Liz was going through.

She broke up with Robin who used to take drugs. It is said that she dedicated him "bluebeard " (as we know, a pirate who used to kill her wives). So this album is kinda therapeutic for her who escaped from a toxic relationship and many songs are in English because of that, she needed to say what she felt .Some songs are about her daughter such as pur and squeeze-wax, from whom she found the strength she needed to carry on. As for Theft and walking around lost, I have read that is about her being molested when she was a child.

This album may not be as good as others but it is still very solid. Songs I like less are essence and oil of angels. The rest are good or okay. I really like pur, though.

In Milk and Kisses she stills have problems with Robin that must be very likely one of the reasons she could not stand to stay in the band longer, and before the album she met Jeff Buckley with whom she had a relationship and ended up breaking before the album. Many songs are related to him. He died after the album (dont remember when), other reason, for me, that may have made her quit.

[felipelemosneto]

Bluebeard is the most beautiful song i have ever heard fr

[S_E_R_]

This is both my parents' fav album by CT. They were young adults in love when the album came out. Pur is my mom's fav CT song as well. I was born around the time Milk & Kisses came out, actually.

[rediscoveryrecords]

My favorite 3 of them is
Blue bell knoll
Heaven and las vegas
Four calendar
The most. Just dont listen to them if you are going thru a break up.

[czarmty]

When I want to introduce CT music to someone... I use this album. It has a more accessible sound. I like everything about CT and I listen to this album a lot more when I'm in a super good mood, and if I'm not, it makes my day. It is very well producing, it only needed to be released on LP and recently they did it.

[MEMEMEX]

So the last track... Pur... on initial listening is nothing special... few more listens.... it’s the best track on the album... 😎

[iSkyhigh]

You never seem to describe any of the CT songs as good love making songs. I really feel that spiritual love on a bunch of tracks on this album and with Victorialand as well

[edsonelorsa]

At the time, a music critic here in Brazil, in his review of this record, classified this LP as Art-Rock

[Grithron]

By repute, and, to be reductive, this is "the Elizabeth Fraser psychotherapy album" - and not just because some lyrics are quoted verbatim from medical textbooks. The crisis that drobe her to psychotherapy was not so much the unravelling of her relationship with Robin as the fact that motherhood had brought to the surface long suppressed/buried relationships of her own sexual abuse at the hands of various relatives including her father.
[Theft... is only the song most explicitly "about" her abusive family - some people discern innuendos about it in Fotzepolitic from Heaven Or Las Vegas].
During this period, allegedly, she was hospitalized under Mental Health Act terms, twice (the second being after that world tour which has been described as a "slow-motion nervous breakdown")
Another influence on the album is her difficult on/off romantic relationship with Jeff Buckley (which, on the evidence of various interviews, may have begun as early as 1991, when he was mostly-unheard-of)
It's a shame that Liz later publically regretted these "self-help-book songs", whilst denouncing the whole concept of autobiographical songwriting - firstly because these were songs she needed to write (in or out of Cocteau Twins, she couldn't have made any other kind of record at this time in her life), and secondly because that opening quartet of songs climaxing in Theft... were empathized with by an unfortunately enormous number of people, who found the album inspirational and in its way encouraging.
(Refer also to contemporary b-sides especially Mud And Dark [hiding behind classical mythology] and Ice-Pulse [directly expressive]).
In a different way, people will have been inspired by self-analytical songs like My Truth, and by the more unsentimental of the "parental" songs (Pur and Essence).
And never forget the monumental impact of hearing songs such as these from someone who, in the past, had been so very private and introverted - even once past that initial gut-wrenching song-sequence, every one of these songs seemed, at the time, like a "shocking" revelation.
Footnote: The briefly-very-popular mid '90s group Puressence - does that name ring any (blue) bells?

[surreallane]

This is my most Favorite of theirs! I especially like Pur the last song. I grew up with Cocteau Twins and I still listen to this day. I never realized that Liz was going through things during this album, and I can definitely relate when it came to going against abuse from my step father. I disagree that it’s not as dreamy though, I find this just as dreamy than most. The others were more mythical kind of dreamy. Guess it depends on the person though.

[UbiquitousMrluv]

Excited for you to dig into their EPs/non album song collection.

[thesoundlikechameleons]

and you actually hear what Elizabeth is singing here! I am not afraid of your anger...

[thesound-chameleonman]

I got Simon Raymonde to sign a magazine page of Four Calendar cafe for me... good album.. I'm on Facebook or Instagram for evidence 😉😂👍🏼

[onodij]

I can't tell nothing bad about any album from CT, but many people seems to "hate/dislike" their two last albums, making the excuse that "they were sold commercially", that this is commercial pop music, and it has nothing to do with what they were... AND SO WHAT??? Is it more "commercial? Maybe... Is it more "popy" than the old stuff? Yes... And, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM??? It remains absolutely unique and personal music, so I never understood why so many thinks "Four" and "Milk" are bad albums or things like that... I always thought it was a natural step in their career.
More accessible does not mean less interesting...
Glad you really like this one, waiting for the next stop of the trip... Saludos desde Argentina Alex!!!

[babybop]

My truth is one of my favorite songs by them.

[RaphaelMittageisen]

Omg it just sounds amazing. Liz’voice is incomparable. Why do you keep fast foolrwarding the tracks lol ? You should make another video just on the Bluebeard track, which is a terrific EP. Another one for Carolyn’s Fingers as well.
I’d love it it you do it so❤
Beijos de São Paulo City - Brazil

[Popfan]

Please react to Cocteau Twins - Hitherto if you haven’t already... It’s bottled brilliance :)

[threedeemelodies]

forgive my off topicness but we need a stereolab remaster discography dive

[Kyle_heringer]

I love your faces when each song finishes 🤣

[thesound-chameleonman]

Hi Alex how about a reaction to Script of the bridge by The Chameleons or From the lion's mouth by The Sound? both amazing albums.