Cocteau Twins

Elizabeth Fraser often sang words no one could find in a dictionary. Her soaring soprano bent made-up sounds and half-borrowed phrases into pure feeling, floating over guitars that Robin Guthrie drenched in so many effects they became a shimmering wall of colour. With Simon Raymonde on bass from 1983, the Scottish trio all but created dream pop.

Their records on 4AD moved from the otherworldly Treasure (1984) to the warm, glowing Heaven or Las Vegas (1990), their biggest UK success. Along the way Fraser and Guthrie cut a hushed cover of Tim Buckley's 'Song to the Siren' for the label's This Mortal Coil project, her voice at its most fragile over Guthrie's echoing guitar.