La Maison de Mon Rêve (2004)
7
Terrible Angels / By Your Side / Jesus Loves Me / Good Friday / Not
for Sale / Tahiti Rain Song / Candy Land / Butterscotch / West
Side / Madonna / Hatian Love Songs / Lyla
Somebody
must've told these girls about the power of juxtaposition, since Sierra and
Bianca Cassidy (a.k.a. 'Coco' and 'Rosie') managed to create one hell of a
puzzling album that just keeps on adding layers and layers of intriguing and
disorienting elements. Unfortunately, their persistent self-obsession and
fondness of gimmicks that aren't really adding anything sometimes gets in
the way of their better judgement, which results in an annoyingly uneven record
at times. But, before you decide to skip this review from this point onwards,
some positive aspects need to be told as well. Their approach isn't really
bursting with originality - eccentric artists have been knocking together
idiosyncratic albums in their little apartments for years - but they somehow
manage to create a sound that's wholly unique. It's in their voices, their
eagerness to play with conventions (stylistically and lyrically) and their
fondness of cheap gimmicks (literally and figuratively). Whenever they're
harmonizing, one of them is usually singing in a croaked, nearly out of key-voice
straight from the next town's most obscure twee-pop band, while the other
one does it in a theatrical way (Bianca has a classically trained voice),
wilfully destroying the conventional appeal a "nice" voice might have. As
for instrumention… well there's piano, acoustic guitar, minimal beats from
a rudimentary computer-program (I guess) and uh… all the rest are "funny noises".
I don't know what they actually use, but I'm sure it must've involved prehistoric
computer games and other children's toys (race cars and stuff), kitchen utensils,
scratched records, accidental noises/sounds and basically everything they
could get their hands on. It has a certain homemade charm ("Look what they
did, using only a heap of garbage!"), but sometimes they rely on tricks so
heavily that they become merely excuses for songs that aren't really there
("Tahiti Rain Song," lullaby from hell "West Side," "Hatian Love Songs,"
etc). Lyrically, they certainly have the potential to offend as well. Whereas
you'd expect songs about broken relationships, sadness, melancholy or whatever
you usually associate with "things to make and do"-albums, they manage to
turn the conventions upside down by singing about Eastern-European child prostitutes
("Lyla"), subservient housewives ("All I wanted was to be your housewife,
I'll iron your clothes, I'll shine your shoes, I'll make you bed" go the lyrics
of the eerily Billie Holiday-like "By Your Side"), and flat-out provocation
("Jesus loves me, but not my wife, not my nigger friends or their nigger lives").
There aren't any themes that can't be tackled in a less-than-respectful way,
but when they're wrapped up in such grotesque and childish arrangements, you
wonder what they're actually trying to prove and in which way they try to
be sincere. The blending of sparse folk, gospel vocals, lo-fi carelessness,
touches of jazz, hip-hop and avant-garde is definitely adventurous and sometimes
even admirable, but the results usually aren't up to its potential. However
(and now we get to the good news, finally), when they do manage to
come up with melodies and arrangements that are so good that they even can't
be detracted by the appearance of any Fisher Price toy, they hit bull's eye.
I don't exactly grasp how they do it, but the combination of the conversational
vocals with the theatrical ones work well in "Butterscotch" (despite the annoying
doorbell), "Madonna'" has a flat-out touching melody and plucked guitar, while
parts of "By Your Side" and "Good Friday" are nearly extra-terrestrial in
their originality. La Maison de Mon Rêve (that's The House of My
Dream for you monolinguals out there) is worshipped by some and loathed
by others. Each camp has its (sensible) arguments and while these extremes
aren't an indication of the album's greatness (as is often the case with records
so dividing), it certainly is a repeatedly annoying and frustrating
album that nevertheless remains very intriguing, and that's more than
you can say about Slipknot. Or the past fifteen years of The Cure's career,
for instance.
Noah's Ark (2005)
5.5
K-Hole / Beautiful Boyz / South 2nd / Bear Hides and Buffalo
/ Tekno Love Song / The Sea Is Calm / Noah's Ark / Milk / Armageddon
/ Brazilian Sun / Bisounours / Honey or Tar
Three
fucking unicorns, one of which is barfing............[::sigh::]. The cover
for Noah's Ark, the sophomore release by indie-darlings and weird folk-merchants
CocoRosie, suggests the Casady sisters would continue in the vein of 2004's La
Maison de Mon Rêve, a puzzling/intriguing document that stubbornly walked
the thin line between captivating creativity and annoying self-indulgence,
cheap trickery and classy details that were thrown in a salad bowl and topped
with a dressing so artsy and hard to pinpoint that new labels had to be invented.
It was a refreshing sound that evoked a world of childish innocence and urban
bohemia (until you paid attention to the provocative lyrics), and even though
the dense trickery became a bit overbearing over the course of an entire album, the
debut boasted several stand-out songs ("Butterscotch," "By Your Side," "Good
Friday," Madonna") that somehow managed to find their way into your head and
nest there for a while. The record was quite a success and the sisters
almost became role models and inspiration for a generation of musicians with the
possibility of recording an album entirely in their little apartments. Unfortunately,
Noah's Ark is nowhere as instantly catching or appealing. The artwork,
photography and sound of the album are vintage CocoRosie, but there's
an alarming lack of memorable melodies on the album. After two listens, there
was only one song I could remember. After five listens there were three. Now,
about four days (and 15 listens) later, there are five. Some will call this maturity,
a result of a subtler approach, an act that's less concerned with instant
effect, but I don't.
If there's one stand-out song on this album, it's "Beautiful Boyz, the much-anticipated collaboration with another critic's favorite, Antony & the Johnsons. A gentle piano melody, a lazy, looping beat (it sounds like the march of the Ents) and the fascinating contrast between the voices of Antony and the Casady sisters, that's all what's needed to turn the life-story of writer Jean Genet - a trip to the reformatory, a walk into prostitution, a wandering around in the homosexual community, and even imprisonment - into a baffling song, constantly walking the thin line between sadness and sensuality, strength and vulnerability. If the album had continued in this vein, Noah's Ark would've been a smash success. It doesn't, however, although "South 2nd" (coming next), displaying an eerie similarity to a few This Mortail Coil-songs, manages to keep the momentum going for a while. Also noticeable are the lounge-y trip-hop of the title track and the alliance with Devendra Banhart ("Brazilian Sun"), which results in the kind of spooky ethno-folk the tribes in Cannibal Holocaust would definitely wanna check out. Sure, CocoRosie definitely have their own style - toys, lo-fi hiss, croaking vocals and (appropriately) animal sounds galore! - and they're independent, artsy ladies that love to play with the conventions of music (the presence of French MC Spleen is a nice, adventurous touch), fashion and perceived sexuality (the feminine/masculine appearances), but there's only so much you can get away with and no amount of diverting factors is going to hide the fact you don't have all that much to say. While they stress that travelling the world with likeminded artists such as Banhart, Bright Eyes, Antony, TV on the Radio and others inspired them to record Noah's Ark, I kinda wish they'd stayed at home and cooked up another record in their fancy apartment. Not because I dislike progress, but because this album is actually the soundtrack to stagnation and in the end far less rewarding than La Maison de Mon Rêve. Despite the moo-cows and liquid pudding-sounds, "K-Hole" and "The Sea Is Calm" are surprisingly bland, while the devilish lullaby "Bear Hides and Buffalo" and the commune-chant of "Armageddon" are downright annoying. Noah's Ark is certainly not a disaster (and if you were a fan of the debut, you'll like it), but it is disappointing to hear that the fearless angels from hell have become nearly harmless. I may be the spineless idiot who "just doesn't get it," but this is where I leave the ship. Have a nice trip, ladies.
P.S.: Be a dolphin!
Read album reviews of similar or related artists: Devendra Banhart - Joanna Newsom