My relationship with the Cocteau Twins began with their ‘Stars And Topsoil’ Best Of, but despite falling in love with about six tracks so deeply that they easily rank amongst my favourite songs ever, enough to suggest that the Cocteaus could warrant a place in the pantheon of my all-time ace-est bands, the rest of the record left me pretty cold, and I never really followed up on them. But flicking through You Tube recently, I unearthed some scorching live numbers, and now I think it’s finally time to take the relationship to the next level. But where to go? I prefer the Cocteaus when they’re at their most spirited, yet also at their most poppy, stuff like ‘Orange Appled’ and ‘Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops’. I’m not adverse to their harsher, more minimal early stuff, but I'm not really down with the scary early-80s doominess of the likes of ‘My Love Paramour’. I’m not too sold on what I’ve heard of the ‘Victorialand’-era whimsy. I quite like some of the stuff from ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’, but had their sound become too watered-down by this point? I really like the stuff from ‘Milk And Kisses’ I heard on You Tube, but I know this was one of their worst-received releases. Some of the best stuff on ‘Stars And Topsoil’ is taken from EPs, but is it worth ploughing through the four discs of the EP collection ‘Lullabies To Violaine’? Oh, the questions...