CocoRosie - Curious & Hauntingly Beautiful Pop Music

CocoRosie – Curious & Hauntingly Beautiful Pop Music

Feb 17, 2020 in Arts & Culture, Discover, Music by Dennis Martin

This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)

American cross-disciplinary performance artists, CocoRosie (Sierra and Bianca Casady), approach their craft with a unique perspective. Entering their world is like walking into a shop of curious oddities that are strangely enticing and hauntingly beautiful. They are deconstructing the pop genre, breaking it down into the most finite of elements, creating eccentric musical works that blur the lines between pop and theater. Their music is a roadside carnival with each song under its own circus tent, a unique world to be marveled at. “Aloha Friday”, a single from their forthcoming album “Put The Shine On”, is a slow turning music box that warps time with toy bell sonic textures, distant strings, and a Björk-like vocal lullaby.

Bianca Casady introduces the new song:

“Dear ones, we are excited to announce the release of another song from our upcoming album. Aloha Friday was written in my birthplace, the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s a melancholic special something for you all to enjoy.”

CocoRosie are coming off an outstanding 2019 that saw a collaboration with Chance The Rapper, “Roo” (co-written, produced and performed by CocoRosie) on his album, The Big Day. Their single, “Lamb & the Wolf” featured artwork by legendary theater director, visual artist and their frequent collaborator, Robert Wilson.

We don’t often post the artist bios in our reviews but theirs is something unique as it opens the door to the wonders that CocoRosie are creating, the diversity of projects they are working on, and will no doubt have you seeking more of their beautiful curiosities.

Their songs blend a myriad of styles and references, from hip-hop to folk and opera, shaping the most painful of experiences into memorable and evocative pop songs. Taken as a whole, CocoRosie’s music is an ongoing psychologically intimate dialogue between the siblings. Each sister has multiple personae and vocal styles; Bianca delivers troubadourian-style rap while Sierra often responds with ethereal tones while accompanying their voices on harp, piano, or guitar. A quintessential part of their sound is a percussive landscape made using children’s toys and other found objects which adds a particular nostalgia to their songs.

Finding expression for their ideas in other disciplines beyond the traditional musical parameters is paramount to the sisters – and often a source of inspiration for their songwriting. In addition to their album tours and festival performances worldwide, Bianca has held solo exhibitions of her artwork in NYC at Deitch Gallery and Cheim and Read. Bianca has created “Nightshift,” a dance-theater production and Sierra wrote and performed “Soul Life,” an experimental opera, both staged at the Donau Festival in Krems which they curated in 2012. Continuing on her path to become a theater director, Bianca directed two theater plays with the National Theater Academy in Norway and is currently developing new works, exploring new forms of opera and dance where Sierra will play a lead role, to be premiered at the Manchester Festival in 2021.

Sierra has arranged and performed music in collaboration with the likes of the Symphony Orchestra of Amsterdam, The ICA in London and The Sydney Opera House.

Most recently, CocoRosie has composed original scores for four full-length theatrical works by Robert Wilson: Peter Pan, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, Edda, and Jungle Book and now creating The Tempest. Last year they presented the second series of songs written for a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet at their hometown Kronos Festival in San Francisco.