Elizabeth Fraser

Elizabeth Davidson Fraser (born 29 August 1963) is a Scottish singer. She was the vocalist for the band Cocteau Twins, who achieved worldwide success from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Their studio albums Victorialand (1986) and Heaven or Las Vegas (1990) reached the top ten of the UK Album Charts, while other albums, including Blue Bell Knoll (1988), Four-Calendar Café (1993), and Milk & Kisses (1996), charted on the Billboard 200 album charts in the United States and 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 several tracks from their 1998 album Mezzanine), most notably the commercially successful single "Teardrop)", and album tracks "Black Milk" and "Group Four". She later collaborated with the band again on the track "Silent Spring", released on their 2006 compilation Collected).

Elizabeth Fraser

When the Cocteau Twins disbanded, Fraser embarked on a solo career and provided guest vocals for other artists. She released some solo material, including the singles "Underwater" (2000) and "Moses" (2009). In 2022, Fraser released the EP Sun's Signature, which includes a reworked version of her 2000 single "Underwater". Her distinctive style has received much critical praise; she was described by critic Jason Ankeny as "an utterly unique performer whose swooping, operatic vocals relied less on any recognisable language than on the subjective sounds and textures of verbalised emotions".

Early years

Fraser was born and grew up in Grangemouth. She described it 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 said she went through incest; she was then forced to leave the family house at 16 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, which she later lasered off. She met 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".

Elizabeth Fraser