Last Thursday, I caught Coco Rosie (biographical info here) in fine form at this great venue. Unlike the Astoria, Scala is a fun place to go to and the irony this time was that had I had my camera with me (as opposed to leaving it on the number 35 — thank you, Oxford Bus Company for getting it back to me safe and sound) then my photos from the front of the pit would have been sensational. As it is, I have some photos from a Nokia N70 that are not bad, all things considered: on Flickr, here. (The day will come, and soon, when our phones will take great photos. The N70 is still just a 2 megapixel camphone, but that's such a step up from the 6630 and its 1.3 megapixel camera.)
What a gig! Coco Rosie are a phenomenon: a highly sexualised act, led off by a very male black dancer with a skirt on over his trousers and a keyboard player who looked male but, after ten minutes, was, we realised, a woman … The sisters, Bianca Casady and Sierra, sported moustaches drawn with a childlike hand. Cross-dressing and gender confusion, but not as in drag — all very see through, yet enough to be provoking and arresting. Gender, identity, gay and straight sexuality, loss and dream-like longing were all very strongly present themes throughout their set, on stage and in the lyrics. And there was downright, straightforward exuberance, too!
The music is far better live than recorded (and I really like their two albums): innovative and eccentric, but seen in the act of composition with little of the studio (pre-recorded/recorded) about it. They use a wide range of instruments, including "toys", and their sharply contrasting voices (Sierra is classically trained and had been destined for an operatic career) are often set against each other in ways that are by turns uncomfortable and beautiful. For the latter, I think of 'Good Friday'; for the former, 'The Sea is Calm'. 'Tahiti Rain Song' showed Bianca's voice to great effect and 'Candyland' Sierra's harp playing and singing. 'K-Hole' was another memorable song from the night. 'Beautiful Boyz' could easily have suffered from the absence of Antony, but the sadness of the song was well caught by the group.
From Chicago Innerview:
The music on La Maison de Mon Reve evokes genres of soul, gospel and blues, but Bianca and Sierra don't want to be limited by a certain type of music. Their songs play with an older Southern vernacular, with fictionalized stories and monologues. Bianca writes most of the songs and plays with various toys while Sierra puts the writings to melodies and vocals. "Everything is basically the way it sounds. It sounds like an endless resource of sound that creates a story or a feeling or even a sense that it's real, that you are just listening to a real moment," states Bianca about their music.
They integrate their own recorded samples that sound like degraded old records (similar to what Moby does except with authentic samples) and field recordings such as falling rain, birds chirping and an ambulance siren. Even though Bianca and Sierra used degrees of improvising on the album, they let it evolve naturally into structure …
The first track is the melodic "Terrible Angels" where Sierra sings as Bianca backs her up. The track combines their beautiful voices with a sawing sound to become a poignant lullaby. The next song is "By Your Side" where Sierra sings in a blues-inspired Billie Holiday or Nelly Furtado voice about a woman who wants to be a housewife: "All I wanted was to be your housewife/I'll iron your clothes /I'll shine your shoes /I'll make your bed /And cook your food /I'll never cheat /I'll be the best girl you'll ever meet." An array of sounds including crickets, birds and electro beats also accompany the track.
On "Jesus Loves Me," the girls continue with the Southern dialect to tell a story about how "Jesus loves me/But not my wife/Not my nigger friends /Or their nigger lives" to create a minimalist song with jangling tones at the end. The rest of the album appeals to romanticism and naturalism, with the dreamlike and poetic track "Good Friday" which features an acoustic guitar, whispering voices, and swirling sounds. The stripped down "Tahiti Rain Song" uses gospel vocals against the sound of actual rain falling onto a tin; the instrumental track "Candylandplaying" showcases Sierra's opera vocals with the piano and harp highlighting this angelic tune, while the romantic yearning of "Haitian Love Song" contrasts the other songs with its use of subtle hip hop beats. With this style of experimentation, Bianca and Sierra allow themselves to change with the music. "Part of it is an evolving regression to kinda go against myself, to create and consider different types of music. For me, it ended up with qualities people classify as folk/blues."
… Bianca says, "I guess I like the idea of doing something really contrasting - like with the Wu Tang Clan - something that would challenge people's idea of categorizing music." The duo are always recording and collecting new sounds as they embark on another record, which Bianca says gets "weirder and weirder."
See Voodooeros for other releases from the collective that includes Coco Rosie, Devendra Banhart, Diane Cluck, Vashti Bunyan … (There's a recent interview with Devendra Banhart which ropes in Coco Rosie and throws out links to many no doubt shared influences and listened-to bands/albums.) The Enlightened Family looks like an interesting album to follow up. The Milk Factory:
(Bianca) has collected a series of previously unheard songs from friends, both famous and unknown. The Enlightened Family features two tracks from a sixteen-year old Devendra Banhart, a 1968 recording from British folk legend Vashti Bunyan, an instrumental recorded by Patrick Wolf on a desert island, two tracks from Diane Cluck, an old forgotten piano track from Sierra Casady, and two of the sisters’ side projects, Metallic Falcons and Island Folk Lore.
Far from focussing on just one sound, this album changes direction with every track, from the fragile opener by Metallic Falcons and the soulful You’ll Never Know from Nomi to Houses, a track recorded by Devendra Banhart for a friend’s Birthday, which already showed signs of his particular aptitude at crafting perfect bohemian pop songs, or the chaotic gallic hip-hop of Rock N’Roll from CocoRosie’s regular collaborator Spleen, here with Zen, each track seems placed specifically against the one it follows to generate multiple clashes all the way through.
The two gems out of this eccentric family are to be found with Diane Cluck’s delectably sweet and sour Real Good Time and Vashti Bunyan’s long lost demo Song Of A Wishwanderer, which appears to encompass everything her followers thrive for in the astonishing purity of her voice and singing, which even the poor quality of the recording cannot alter.
The usually reliable Pitchfork gets it wrong, twice: La Maison de Mon Rêve, Noah's Ark. At Scala, there was a Dylan 1996 moment when someone shouted out during the act, 'You're a sham'. No, they're not: they're exciting, inventive and taking great risks — and they're taking people with them (as was obvious by the reception on Thursday and by the unusual composition of the audience — all ages and with evidence of some serious musicians scattered amongst us, there to check out one of the most interesting bands around).
