Richenel's "L'esclave Endormi" (BAD 601) was originally issued on the Belgian Megadisc label. When Ivo heard the song, he was struck by Richenel's haunting voice and licensed the track to 4AD. Richenel's original recording served as the B-side while an Ivo/John Fryer remix, designed to give his voice as much space as possible, was used as the A-side. Ivo subsequently met Richenel and invited him to sing on This Mortal Coil's Filigree & Shadow album. He became the featured vocalist on covers of Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Firebrothers" and Tim Buckley's "I Must Have Been Blind."
The first Cocteau Twins release of 1986 was an unusual one. Victorialand (CAD 602) was an entirely acoustic album made by Robin Guthrie and Liz Fraser as a duo - the unusual frequency range of the final mix meant that the record had to be mastered at 45 r.p.m. A entirely different sonic challenge arrived later in the year with the gorgeous density of the "Love's Easy Tears" single (BAD 610), on which Simon Raymonde and electricity both returned with a vengeance. The final Cocteaus project of a typically productive year came about as the result of a proposed television series for Britain's Channel 4 which aimed to document collaborations between rock and jazz musicians. The programme-makers suggested that the Cocteaus team up with pianist Harold Budd - and although the TV series was never actually made, the pairing bore musical fruit in the shape of The Moon And The Melodies (BAD 611), which was credited to Budd / Fraser / Guthrie / Raymonde.
The preceding summer, Ivo had taken on his first and only non-4AD production job, working with ex-Bauhaus vocalist Peter Murphy on his album Should The World Fail To Fall Apart. While in the studio, Murphy played Ivo an unlabelled tape of a Bulgarian women's choir that he'd been given by an acquaintance. Ivo was stunned by the unearthly power of the singing, and embarked upon a frantic quest to learn the identity of the album and acquire a copy of it. It transpired that the album in question was entitled Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares [The Mystery Of Bulgarian Voices], and that it consisted of field recordings made over a 15-year period by the Swiss archivist Marcel Cellier. Ivo decided to license the recordings from Cellier and issue them on 4AD (CAD 603). The resulting release proved massively popular and highly influential.
Colourbox returned with not one, but two new singles, both of which were released on the same day. "Baby I Love You So" (BAD 604) was a brilliantly sculpted reggae-pop gem, while the sly mock-pomposity of "The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme" (BAD 605) actually did came very close to being selected as the music for BBC television's World Cup coverage that year. Sadly, apart from a track on the following year's Lonely Is An Eyesore anthology, these were the last recordings Colourbox ever released.
While The Burden Of Mules had been assembled over a lengthy span of time, The Wolfgang Press's second album Standing Up Straight (CAD 606) was the group's first experience of making an album in a compressed period of time. It was also the first Wolfgang Press album to feature Andrew Grey, who had joined the preceding year. The band was still developing their blend of angular rhythms and Cave-like theatrics, but the album had many highlights, including the climactic "I Am The Crime," which featured Elizabeth Fraser and strings from Martin McCarrick and Gini Ball.
Ivo was stuck in traffic on his way to the office one day when he popped in a demo tape by a band from Rhode Island. By the time he got to work, he'd played it three times. The band was Throwing Muses - frontwomen Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnelly and the phenomenally inventive rhythm section of Leslie Langston and David Narcizo - and they became 4AD's first American signing. Ivo sent producer Gil Norton (Echo & The Bunnymen's Ocean Rain) to the States to record an album just prior to the birth of Kristin's first child. Throwing Muses (CAD 607) was immediately hailed as one of the major debut albums of the 80's; it's naive power still sounds as compelling as ever.
Ivo had begun work on the second This Mortal Coil album shortly after It'll End In Tears was released. Filigree & Shadow (DAD 609) - the title is taken from a song by the 60's band Fever Tree - was intended from the start as a double album, and Ivo spent a considerable amount of time structuring the music so that it would flow. The record was begun at Palladium in Scotland with Martin McCarrick and Palladium's proprietor Jon Turner and completed with John Fryer at Blackwing. As before, Ivo drew upon a large talent pool of musicians - Simon Raymonde made important contributions, as did members of Colourbox, Dif Juz and The Wolfgang Press - but this time the bulk of the vocalists came from outside of 4AD. The selection of cover versions on the album included material by Tim Buckley, Gene Clark, Tom Rapp, Judy Collins and Colin Newman. Prior to the release of the album, a limited edition 10-inch single (BAD 608) was issued coupling striking interpretations of Van Morrison's "Come Here My Love" and "Drugs" by Talking Heads. Model Pallas Citroen became the cover star once again - Ivo approached actress Maria Schnieder, but was rebuffed. [Trivia factoid for trainspotters : although his name is misspelled in the credits, Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers - a friend of Palladium's Jon Turner - is part of the choir on "Strength Of Strings".]
Dif Juz's Out Of The Trees (MAD 612) was a mini-album combining all of the tracks from their first EP Huremics with a re-recorded, re-mixed version of the follow-up EP Vibrating Air.
Xymox, who were now officially referring to themselves as Clan Of Xymox, returned with their second album. Recorded with John Fryer, Medusa (BAD 613) was an album of dark atmospheric songs, punctuated by occasional bursts of psychedelic electro-pop.