The Moon and the Melodies: When Harold Budd Met the Cocteau Twins at September Sound

In 1986, the ambient composer Harold Budd was introduced to the Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie with the goal of teaming for a TV project. Or maybe it was because the Cocteau Twins wanted to cover one of Budd’s songs? From 4AD Records:

No one involved can recall exactly how it came about. As both Guthrie and Simon Raymonde remember it, the independent UK television station Channel 4 approached them about a film project pairing musicians from different genres. In interviews in the 1980s, however, Budd (who sadly passed away in 2020), believed his publisher linked them after the group had expressed interest in covering one of his songs. In any case, the film never happened. “But we’d spoken to Harold, and we were all quite excited about it,” Raymonde recalls. “We’re like, well, let’s carry on and do it anyway and see what happens.” 

Budd, in fact, told a whole story about what occurred during what he believed to be their first meeting. “I met Robin Guthrie through Ivo Watts Russell, the founder of 4AD,” Budd told the site The Audiophile Man in the late ‘10s. “We went to a Cocteau Twins gig, Elizabeth Fraser’s voice was remarkable, then went backstage to meet them. They initially wanted to only cover one of my pieces, from the Eno collaboration, The Plateaux Of Mirror, but we eventually decided on recording an album of new work together. I developed my friendship with Robin Guthrie there and then. It took about a month of daily work in the studios to do Moon…. There was a very good pub nearby, in White City, I remember, which I took scandalous advantage of, I must say.”

A breathtaking collaboration released by 4AD Records — and the beginning of a lifelong set of collaborations with Guthrie — The Moon and the Melodies combined Budd’s atmospheric environmental pieces with the Cocteau Twins’ (credited individually as Simone Raymonde, Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser) echoed, proto-shoegaze washes of shimmering sound. 4AD has just issued a remastered version of the album. It’s an exquisite document, and we’re getting some copies of the vinyl version in the shop.

“The nature of Robins’ music is largely textural and gestural rather than melodic,” Budd said in 2007 of his work with Guthrie, which after Moon and the Melodies included four duo albums — After the Night Falls (2007), Before the Day Breaks (2007), Bordeaux (2011), and Another Flower (2021) — and two film scores for director Gregg Araki, Mysterious Skin (2004) and White Bird in a Blizzard (2014). “It lends itself to all different kinds of ways of adding to it,” Budd continued. “My piano playing is obviously not made up of melodies and things; that’s not what I do. So it’s very easy, I think, for a person who plays basically textural guitar to add to it because it’s not destroying a melodic line because there isn’t one.”

“One of my proudest achievements is the Mysterious Skin score – soundtrack album,” director Araki told Synth History last year. “It’s just such a beautiful, beautiful record, and the idea that this beautiful record would not exist if it wasn’t for Mysterious Skin is so gratifying. I just always loved the music so much. That record in particular, and The White Bird [in a Blizzard] soundtrack, too, is fucking incredible. I’m just so blessed to have even gotten the chance to work with them.”

Notably, neither The Mysterious Skin nor The White Bird in a Blizzard scores are available on streaming services, let alone CD or vinyl. In fact, neither has ever been issued on LP, and used CDs of the Mysterious Skin score currently go for more than $100. (Note: Always look for these CDs in bargain bins and Goodwills; there are definitely copies out in the wild, and few have any idea of the value.)

Both Budd and Guthrie long valued their friendship; Guthrie and his family vacationed in Los Angeles with Budd, and the two apparently shared a great love of pub culture. Budd recalled one such conversation in the Audiophile Man interview.

“When I was working on The White Arcades, I was travelling to Edinburgh. Great pubs up there. The people were great too. I remember Robin Guthrie giving me valuable advice,” Budd said.

Guthrie: ‘You’ve got to learn two things. Firstly, how do you pronounce Edinburgh?’

Budd: ‘Edinboro.’

‘No. It’s Edinbr-a.’

‘Right, ok.’

‘OK, when you go to a pub, what do you order?’

‘A pint of bitter.’

‘No. You order a pint of heavy.’

Budd: ‘I thought, right – thanks. Then I fitted right in. I even went to the bank and changed my cash to Scottish paper money.’

You can secure a copy of the new 4AD reissue of The Moon and the Melodies here. Some details on the release, via the record label: “Building on the atmospheric bliss of Victorialand, released earlier the samei year, it signaled a possible future for the trio, yet it was a path they’d never take again. Now, almost forty years after it was first released, it’s being reissued on vinyl for the first time – remastered, from the original tapes, by Robin Guthrie himself.”