At a glance
- Artist
- Cocteau Twins
- Released
- 1 September 1982
- Label
- 4AD
- Catalogue number
- CAD 211
- Format
- 12″ Vinyl
- Country
- UK
- Tracks
- 8, 35:26
In the issue
It laid down the ethereal, effects-soaked guitar approach and wordless vocals years before shoegaze had a name.
Garlands is the proto-shoegaze record, laying down the ethereal, effects-soaked guitar approach and wordless vocal style years before anyone called it shoegaze. Recorded in 1982 at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, when the Scottish trio were barely out of their teens, it caught Robin Guthrie's guitar already swimming in layers of chorus and reverb, notes bleeding into each other rather than standing apart.
Listen
Find a copy
The original 12″ vinyl: 4AD CAD 211, 1982.
Track list
- A1Blood Bitch4:35
- A2Wax and Wane4:03
- A3But I’m Not2:43
- A4Blind Dumb Deaf3:56
- B1Shallow Then Halo5:14
- B2The Hollow Men5:04
- B3Garlands4:30
- B4Grail Overfloweth5:21
The label
4AD released the Cocteau Twins' debut Garlands in 1982, and the band's effects-heavy guitar and wordless vocal style became a template for shoegaze. Ivo Watts-Russell later signed Lush and Pale Saints after seeing them at the Falcon in Camden in April 1989, just as the scene was forming.
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