Elizabeth Davidson Fraser (born 29 August 1963) is a Scottish singer. She was the vocalist for the band Cocteau Twins who achieved international success primarily during the fifteen years from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Their studio albums Victorialand (1986) and Heaven or Las Vegas (1990) both reached the top ten of the UK Album Charts, as well as other albums including Blue Bell Knoll (1988), Four-Calendar Café (1993) and Milk & Kisses (1996) charting on the Billboard 200 album charts in the United States as well as the top 20 in the UK. She also performed as part of the 4AD group This Mortal Coil, including the successful 1983 single "Song to the Siren", and as a guest with Massive Attack on their 1998 single "Teardrop".
The album Heaven or Las Vegas was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and was voted number 218 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2020, Rolling Stone listed it at No. 245 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Four of their studio albums reached number one on the UK Indie Chart.
When the Cocteau Twins disbanded, Fraser embarked on a moderately low-key solo career and provided guest vocals for other artists. In 2000, she appeared alongside Paul Buchanan and Peter Gabriel on Later...with Jools Holland performing "Downside-Up, one of two songs she performed with Gabriel as part of the Millennium Dome Show which ran between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2000. " She released some solo material, including singles "Underwater" (2000) and "Moses" (2009). Fraser has reportedly recorded enough material for a debut solo studio album; however, a release date or further information has not been published. In 2022, Fraser released the EP Sun's Signature, which includes a re-worked version of her 2000 single release "Underwater". In May 2022, Fraser and former band mates Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde were awarded the Visionary Award by The Ivors Academy.
Her distinctive style has received much critical praise in her four-decade career; Melody Maker'''s journalist Steve Sutherland once described her as "the voice of God". She was described by critic Jason Ankeny as "an utterly unique performer whose swooping, operatic vocals relied less on any recognizable language than on the subjective sounds and textures of verbalized emotions".
Biography
Early years
Fraser was born and grew up in Grangemouth, which she described as "a dark and stifling industrial town". Her mother worked in a factory. She was the youngest of six children. During her teenage years, she developed eating disorders and became bulimic. In 1996, Fraser revealed that she was sexually abused by a brother-in-law and possibly her father and that at 16 she was forced to leave the family house for having a punk look. Music was important and represented an escape; at that time Fraser had portraits of her heroes like Siouxsie Sioux tattooed on her arms. She met her partner Robin Guthrie at 17; "What brought us together was me having no ideas and opinions of my own, and him having plenty – enough for both of us. We were attracted to each other for the wrong reasons".
Cocteau Twins (1981–1997)
Fraser then became the vocalist and lyricist in Cocteau Twins in 1981, (a group founded in 1979 by Guthrie and Will Heggie): they spotted her dancing at a club one night and asked her to join their band. At the time, she was 17 years old and had never thought of herself as a singer. After an on-off phase, the band recorded some tracks which were sent as demos to John Peel and Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD which led to their signing by the London-based label and a successful career in music. Fraser and Guthrie formed a relationship, and in 1989 had a daughter, Lucy Belle. Guthrie liberally used alcohol and drugs throughout the years they were together, and Fraser had a nervous breakdown during the recording of Four-Calendar Café. The couple broke up in 1993, but opted to continue a musical relationship mostly due to contractual obligations until 1998, when Cocteau Twins were finally disbanded.
Fraser had a relationship with singer Jeff Buckley and recorded a duet with him, "All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun", written together but never released commercially. She speaks about their relationship in the BBC documentary, Jeff Buckley: Everybody Here Wants You.