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CocoRosie: Wicked & Weird
Mar 26 2007
Before I listened to the new CocoRosie album, I was still undecided on the merit of their recorded work. No doubt there is are a few highlights I would return to on their second album Noah’s Ark (”K-Hole, “Noah’s Ark”, “South 2nd”) but the album overwhelming depends on your tolerance for found sounds - telephones ringing, cats meowing for example, that it seems buried beneath layers of this noise. Bianca’s Newsom-esque voice wobbles around the tracks to greet you while her sister Sierra’s operatic singing style appears sporadically. It was lo-fi and lumped in with the “freak folk” scene yet it had hip hop beats and a sense of otherworldliness beyond Banhart et al.
So now we have CocoRosie: Part III and it doesn’t look promising. Firstly an album called The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn, suggests artistic leanings on previous releases have been allowed to roam to the realm of ridiculous titles, a notion confirmed by the accompanying press release which reads:
This album is a departure from the obscured blur of stained glass rêve to a more self-exploitive memoir. Parts are dreamy and parts are savage, but, as with an opera where death represents a secret heaven, the whole record feels like a black diamond in the snow….
If Jean Genet was the muse that inspired Noah’s Ark, the spirit guide for this album was Wee Willie Winkie. A pre-pubescent idol who never changes out of his bedtime clothes, Wee Willie Winkie runs through town, upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown, knocking on the window, crying through the lock “Are the children all in bed? It’s past eight o’clock.” He might have been an O.R.W. (original rainbowarrior).
Oh Dear.
Luckily, the songs on Ghosthorse.. don’t feel as trapped by sound as on Noah’s Ark. There’s a sense of freedom to the arrangements, it feels less dense and burdened by bleeps and environmental sound. Bianca and Sierra Casady’s voices are unusual enough to sit on top of the tracks and the album’s first two tracks accentuate this - “Rainbowarrior” is an uplifting hip hop song that musically sounds like Enigma (in a good way), “Promise” is a beguiling mix of trip hop, spacey phased synth and a beautiful resonant vocal from Bianca. Another highlight on the album is the ridiculously exuberant “Japan” with lyrics like “everybody wants to go to iraq / but once they go, they dont come back /bringing peanut butter jelly and other snacks / we might have our freedom, but we’re still on crack.“.
No doubt to many their music is as beguiling to some as their back-story (re-united half-Cherokee sisters etc) and if you ignore the failed allusions to drama and grandeur, you may find a beautiful and enchanting album to indulge yourself in.
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Have been listening to the record all weekend, it’s brilliant. Best album from them so far. Love it.
1I had the same feelings as well to start…not knowing if I fully liked them, but I really like the new cd, especially–Animals.
2I actually find the younger sister’s warble far more annoying than Joanna Newsom (whose voice I can tolerate) but the older sister has a great operatic sound.. still not sure about them overall, there are beautiful moments here and there but they certainly heap the whimsy very high.
3Not bloody likely. Ah no, some of their stuff is ok, and there’s obviously talent and creativity going on, but i’d agree with the previous comment insofar as yer one’s voice actually pains me. Not totally down with their whole plethora of esoteric allusions either. I smell patchouli…..
4booooing ping wookie wiki wiki zing zing ping zang zong ting yoyoyoyoyoing
that’s what the song sounds like to me. that, with some crazy farm animals, cotton candy trees, clouds like smoke, and soft lightening.
sooooo good.
5p.s. i’m serious. soooooooo good.
6Great concert in Madrid (April 12th 2007). Wasn´t sure about their music, but after that, I am a big fan.
7The´ve got style.
Great sound…love their child like approch to music, to life. Sat right in front of them, on the stage, at The Apolo, in BCN on April 12th. Loved all their toys-instruments, their thin and tall blond toy-boy (no offense) at the rhytmics, with his mouth and throat, and their Devendra-looking bass player. Love Sierra’s attitude of joy, and Bianca’s “don’t give-a-shit” one. I thought WOLF would have made a great first Video of the record, but I guess “Rainbow Warriors” just suits them for starters. Love their ever better work, and loved to see them live.
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