The band that inspired Prince into a “dreamlike state”
Prince was always a peculiar artist in every regard. His music was wild, but so was his means of reaching it. There is a touted concept called ‘creative flow’ which expresses an experience of total engagement in an activity. However, Prince seemed to be subsumed by this more powerfully than most. When the little ‘Purple One’ was ‘in the zone’ it would’ve taken a hurricane to shift him out of it.
There were albums where he simply absconded into a studio and just about did everything himself. However, he also knew that you needed inspiration from elsewhere sometimes. Being alone got the job done but entering a stilted realm of sole individual endeavour was something that precluded further artistry.
There was one band that Prince often turned to in order to ensure he stayed fresh and creatively infused: Cocteau Twins. Their records were among his most well-thumbed and they even directly inspired one of his best. “We recorded [Tic Tac Toe] in Bryan Ferry’s studio in London, after a night of partying for which the Cocteau Twins was the soundtrack. You can’t understand the words of Cocteau Twins songs, but their harmonies put you in a dreamlike state.”
Often with Cocteau Twins that dream seems like it’s the product of a sleep that has surpassed a thousand alarm clock calls, and although you might not be able to understand the lyrics in a perfunctory sense, they dredge the depths of a different comprehension. As Iain Banks wrote: “The music machine played away – far away – and when I started to understand the lyrics of a Cocteau Twins song, I knew I was wrecked.”
For Prince, it was quite the opposite. When he could catch the drift of their spiritual demurring, he knew he was in a creative space to start crafting something unique himself. What’s more, they also helped him set up his tenets when it came to pioneering new advancements. “Technology is cool,” Prince once explained, “but you’ve got to use it as opposed to letting it use you.”
Cocteau Twins were the master of this. They may well have deployed space-age sonic tinkering, however, when you listen to it, it sounds as natural of the hush of the wind through the trees and not a single synth or spark plug comes to mind. For Prince, this was a stirring experience, they were ethereal and strange to him and that give them a huge appeal. As he once said, “What I like is the stuff that I can’t do. That I would never do. Like the Cocteau Twins. I would never do that.”
