Cocteau Twins – “Cherry-Coloured Funk” (1990)

The sound of feelings you didn’t know had names.

Opening their luminous 1990 album Heaven or Las Vegas, “Cherry-Coloured Funk” is a portal — a sonic spell that doesn’t just play, it floats. The Cocteau Twins never cared much for clarity or convention, and this track is a prime example of why that made them timeless.

Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals don’t so much sing as levitate — surreal, breathy, and untethered from language as we know it. Her delivery is part glossolalia, part lullaby, part open wound. Even if you can’t decipher the words, your heart understands them.

Robin Guthrie’s guitars shimmer like light on water, layering chorus-drenched tones and echoing arpeggios into a soundscape that’s both intimate and infinite. Simon Raymonde’s bass grounds the dream with just enough gravity to keep you floating, not drifting.

 The title — “Cherry-Coloured Funk” — sounds like a contradiction. Sweet and strange. Warm and unknowable. And yet, it’s perfect. Because that’s exactly what the Cocteau Twins delivered:
Emotion without exposition.
Meaning without maps.

It’s not a song you analyze — it’s one you feel.

Ideal for:
– Stargazing on quiet nights
– Losing time with headphones on
– Remembering someone you never quite understood

More than 30 years later, “Cherry-Coloured Funk” still sounds like it came from a parallel universe — one made of color, texture, and half-formed memories.

Not of this world. And better for it.