I haven't listened to the Cocteau Twins so intensely this year, but they still have a pretty fair claim to being my favourite band ever; so, I've been looking for this ep for a while and recently came across it here. It's a bit of a curio, being made up of extremely stripped back (mostly just piano and voice) versions of Cocteaus songs - "Rilkean Heart" and "Half-Gifts" from their final lp, Milk & Kisses (though I think the deal is that Twinlights actually came out before Milk & Kisses), "Pink Orange Red" (off the Tiny Dynamine ep), and one, "Golden-Veins", which seems to've been written and recorded specifically for this ep (though there's also a version of it on their bbc sessions cd)...
Anyway, they're all very much of a piece with one another, delicate, hushed and pretty - and notably different from anything else the band has done (the closest reference point is Victorialand, but that's not very close). I prefer the versions with which I'm more familiar over the ones on this record, unsurprisingly (representative microcosm: the vocal flutters which chime "Pink Orange Red" out comprise one of my favourite moments in the Cocteaus' extensive back catalogue of wonders - in fact, the song is one of my very favourites, along with "Lorelei" and "Heaven Or Las Vegas", and maybe "Musette And Drums" and "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" (and "Blue Bell Knoll", and "Carolyn's Fingers", and ...) - and the more subdued fluting we get here is, while in keeping with the set's overall tone, just immeasurably less magic), but these versions have a modest, unobtrusive charm of their own.
