Elizabeth Davidson Fraser (born 29 August 1963) is a Scottish singer. She achieved worldwide success as the vocalist for the band Cocteau Twins from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. The band's 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.
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".
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 the 1990s, Fraser said she experienced childhood sexual abuse by relatives; she was later 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".
Fraser became the vocalist and lyricist in Cocteau Twins in 1981. Cocteau Twins was 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 not 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 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. They broke up in 1993 but opted to continue a musical relationship mostly due to contractual obligations until 1998, when Cocteau Twins were disbanded.
The group released Heaven or Las Vegas in early 1990. The most commercially successful of their many recordings, the album reached number seven in the UK Albums Chart. Despite the success of the record and the subsequent concert tours, they parted ways with 4AD following Heaven or Las Vegas partly because of conflicts with the label's founder Ivo Watts-Russell, and were close to breaking up over internal problems due in large part to Guthrie's substance abuse. Heaven or Las Vegas was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. It sold 235,000 copies by 1996, according to Billboard.
In 2005, Cocteau Twins were offered the opportunity to reunite and headline the Coachella festival. It was claimed that the Cocteau Twins members – Fraser, Raymonde and Guthrie – would have received £1.5 million each to perform at the concert. Speculation also began around this time that, following a performance at Coachella, the band would reunite and embark on a major tour. Fraser ultimately announced her decision not to take part in the reunion. She recalled in 2009 that she "didn't remember it being that much money and in any case that's not the reason" that she would agree to a Cocteau Twins reunion. In 2021, Raymonde confirmed that the Cocteau Twins would "never reform" to perform or record again.
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. In a 2009 interview with The Guardian, Fraser claimed that she found it "difficult" to think about her former Cocteau Twins bandmates, stating "they were my life, and when you're in something that deeply, you have to remove yourself completely".
Collaborations and guest appearances
While part of Cocteau Twins, Fraser collaborated with numerous artists. She appeared on 4AD house band This Mortal Coil's first release (along with her Cocteau Twins bandmates), where her contributions included a cover version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren". She provided one-off vocals for acts such as Felt ("Primitive Painters"), Dif Juz ("Love Insane"), The Wolfgang Press, and Ian McCulloch ("Candleland" and "Mysterio").
Fraser has sporadically collaborated with a range of performers, including The Future Sound of London (Lifeforms EP), Elliot Goldenthal, Craig Armstrong (The Space Between Us), and Peter Gabriel (the millennium project OVO). Apart from her Cocteau Twins work, she is probably best known for her collaborations with Massive Attack, having recorded three songs for the band's Mezzanine album in 1998 (including the international hit single "Teardrop", on which she replaced the original choice of Madonna), and subsequently toured with the band in 2006, again in 2018–2019 and in 2024. She has also contributed to the soundtracks of several films, including In Dreams, Cruel Intentions, The Winter Guest, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and has occasionally appeared as a guest artist on other musicians' projects. In 2005, she appeared on Yann Tiersen's album Les Retrouvailles, singing on two tracks: "Kala" and "Mary".
Billy Howerdel envisioned Fraser as his first option for A Perfect Circle's lead singer, but she was unavailable for the project. Fraser also rejected a collaboration request from Linkin Park. Fraser appeared as a guest artist on folk singer Sam Lee's single "The Moon Shines Bright", released in December 2019, and subsequently on Sam Lee's album Old Wow, released in January 2020. She sings a fragment of lyrics from the traditional Scottish folk song "Wild Mountain Thyme". Under the project Sun's Signature with her partner Damon Reece, Fraser was set to release a self-titled extended-play album on 23 April 2022, via Rough Trade Records. It was later announced that the album would be released on 18 June via Partisan Records, with the single "Golden Air" released on 6 April.
Between 2024 and 2026, Fraser joined Massive Attack for several live shows.
Fraser's solo career has been intermittent, featuring guest appearances with other artists, and rare solo releases and live appearances. In 2000, a white label recording, "Underwater", was released in a limited edition of 200 copies. She contributed a cover version of "At Last I Am Free" (originally by '70s band Chic, covered by Robert Wyatt) on the 2003 album Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before, a celebration of 25 years of Rough Trade Records. In 2004, she was invited to participate in an audio exhibit, Shhh..., at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, for which she produced a piece called "Expectant Mood", which has not been made commercially available.
She was reportedly signed to Blanco y Negro Records. In December 2006, NME reported that her solo album was due for release in early 2007. The album would have contained eight tracks, one of which was to be a cover version. No titles were announced, and the album was not released in 2007 as suggested. In June 2012, extracts from the as-yet-unreleased album were played on BBC Radio 4. In November 2009, Fraser released a solo single, "Moses", available on 12" and download through Rough Trade. The single was recorded with Damon Reece and Jake Drake-Brockman, and was a memorial to the latter. In August 2012, Fraser performed at Royal Festival Hall for two nights as part of the Meltdown Festival at London's Southbank Centre, curated by Anohni. Prior to the concerts, she confirmed that she had assembled an album's worth of material and would showcase these at the event, in addition to performing re-interpretations of some Cocteau Twins songs. She also referred to the physical exertion involved in her singing against the wall of sound in many of the Cocteau Twins songs, of which she said it was "like an endurance test. I don't intend to do that again. I've been using my voice more gently." Prior to her appearance at Meltdown, she played a warm-up concert at Bath Pavilion on 4 August.