For the Record CocoRosie

Author: Emily Temple

According to the jacket of the album, "The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn is a departure from the obscured blur of stained glass rÍve 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. From her humble beginnings in the South of France, the saga sailed the Seven Seas all the way to that icy crack in the Earth's crust just outside of Reykjavik. Upon return to her Parisian homeland she shared a mystical rendezvous with beautiful sailors Pierre et Gilles, the album cover being the consequence of that affair."

Um. What? First of all, what does a black diamond in the snow actually feel like? Because I think it at least sounds a bit more classically simple than this album does. Rather, CocoRosie's new release is a sample-happy carnival romp, both weirder and more polished than either of their previous full -lengths. Sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady are known for their casual recording techniques - for example, playing piano with one hand and holding the tape recorder with the other or playing guitar on a bike - but they've graduated to the shiny world of fancy microphones and studio equipment, and you can tell. It's made their sound a little more epic, more expansive and unfortunately, quite a bit less organic sounding.

Critics are quick to label CocoRosie as "freak-folk." I suppose there is no better term, though the word on the street is that many of the crowned "leaders" of the "genre," notably Devendra Banhart - an ex-thing of Sierra's - disapprove of its usage. Banhart has rejected it, and actually the whole sub-genre labeling culture that we've developed, as "stupid and tacky." In a certain sense, he's right - just because the critics have made up a word to call the kind of music he plays doesn't make him responsible for it or for "the movement." But on the other hand, Banhart can calm down a little. People just need words for things. And it's hard to put a name on the brand of irreverent and folkish tomfoolery that makes CocoRosie so interesting. Half the time they sound like they're playing music on plastic chew toys, while other times they're like a pair of screaming Joanna Newsoms. The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn is all over the place - the girls manage to incorporate elements of just about every genre there is: hip-hop, reggae, classical, folk, bathtub, fork, and elephant. It's pretty great.

There are some serious missteps, however, such as the operatic interlude on "Japan," which completely ruins an otherwise gloriously bouncy, island-flavored track, and "Girl & the Geese," which is just a missed opportunity. There's something annoying about them, too, and it's not just the obnoxiously self-conscious press releases, although that's part of it. The baby-talk thing is interesting, for a while, but eventually they're just squeaking along, and the gimmick isn't working any more. Some of their tracks are brilliant, but the ones that aren't feel forced and pretentious. When CocoRosie are at their best, their music is complex, oddly augmented, and gorgeously interesting, as in "Werewolf," a semi-autobiographical father story, and the almost poppy, but lovely "Rainbowarriors."

It seems appropriate to reference a children's rhyme, so think of CocoRosie as the little girl who had a little curl: when she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid. Parts are dreamy, parts are certainly savage, and though I don't know about the diamond in the snow thing or any mystical rendezvous, The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn is an abnormally bold, awesomely obnoxious, awfully wonderful playground to explore. So strap on your fairy wings and combat boots, and get lost.