Elizabeth Fraser, ertswhile vocalist of Cocteau Twins, is playing her very first solo live shows next week (August 6 and 7) as part of Antony’s Meltdown at the Southbank Centre in London.

Before 2009, the famously reserved singer – whose voice was one of the defining sounds of the 1980s – had barely released any material of her own since the demise of the Cocteaus 15 years ago, restricting herself largely to the odd guest appearance (most notably on ‘Teardrop’ and two other tracks for Massive Attack‘s Mezzanine). The solo silence was broken three years ago with the ‘Moses’ single on Rough Trade, but no album followed. Her return to the stage

“I think if Antony hadn’t asked me I wouldn’t even be dipping my toe back in,” Fraser tells Mojo, adding that her set will include several cherished songs from the Cocteau Twins’ back catalogue. Her backing band will feature no less than three former members of Spiritualized – her husband Damon Reece (drums), Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis (keyboards), Sean Cook (bass) – as well as former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett.

“It’s not prog,” she says of her new direction, suggesting that an album might be in the words. “Although it’s more like that [than the Cocteau Twins] because we wanted to have a lot of texture.

“My voice has changed a great deal,” she adds. “The strength is coming from a different place.”

You can read the full interview in the new issue of Mojo (September 2012), out now.