COCOROSIE
La maison de
mon reve
CD, Touch & Go
Well,
the story goes like this: Two sisters, Sierra and Bianca Cassidy, from
Brooklyn came together in Paris, the city of dreams, after leading
diagonally different lives. While Sierra studied classical opera in Rome and
Paris, Bianca led the wild life of a US-teen-expat spending time in Europe,
singing on street corners and in bars for tips. In Paris they spent the
spring of 2003 together in a small apartment in the 18th district
and recorded “La Maison de mon reve”, out now to astonish the world and
move it into a translucent state. In my opinion, that story is too good to
be true, but who cares. Cocorosie is made of dreams and made to dream by.
Anything is possible in this deeply-rooted mix of absentminded child’s
singing, field recordings, blues recordings from the Twenties and Thirties
and surrealistic wishful thinking. More than just a record, this is the
vision of the beautiful state of mind that comes while slowly falling asleep
when you lay in the warm summer sun, put into complex and perfectly crafted
music made to sound like it was all done involuntarily, without thinking.
Everything
fits perfectly yet sounds so fragile and real, like snooping in on some
private moment of the sisters. When you start to think about it, it all
becomes “of course”. French as the language of poetry and Paris as the
city of dreams (remember the “fabulous Amelie”?). The field recording,
sounds of the street and the barnyard because the mic has been installed
somewhere close to an open window so as not to disturb the sisters while
playing. And playing in the sense of children playing with toys. The out of
tune-singing, because this was never ment to be released or recorded. The
introvertedness and innocence because these sisters life in an seemingly
innocent world without harm or struggles, like children.
On
closer inspection, there are some cracks and shadows in this white-washed
world of silent play and harmless fun, again dilligently painted into the
picture here and there. Mainly in the lyrics, when they put forth almost
ironical comments hidden behind the naive attitudes taken within the songs.
About religion and the danger of feeling blessed and saved in “Jesus Loves
Me”, where it is all about “Jesus loves me but not my wife / not my
nigger friends or their nigger lives / Jesus loves me that’s for sure /
‘cause the bible tells me so”. Or the traps women find themselves in,
when they find themselves bound to home and children as housewives in “By
your side”, as it says in there “I cook / I make your bed / won’t
snore / I’ll never be a bore ... I just wanted to by your housewifes.”
And at other times clearly outspoken, yet always with the dark brooding of
children pondering the important issues of life and existence: “If every
angel’s terrible / then why do you welcome them?”
But
those dark shadows also appear in the music, as there is a backwater in
every fantasyland. Though most songs rely on nothing more than a few plucked
chords in 2/4-time and some low tinkering drums or bass, there are always
estranging factors and weird noises somewhere. Any European or specially
French influence has seeped through the music without much of audible
residues, except for an affinity towards the bohemian lifestyle still alive
in the minds of most people not from Europe and fans of those writers,
painters and musicians from decades ago. Unable to escape their roots, it is
still simplest blues- and country-structures that dominate the songs, though
clearly recognizeable, mixed somewhere in the back of the arrangements.
There are some other, more ethnic styles without consequence (just like
there is nothing of consequence in their world). Mainly, though, the music
proved the quirky and wobbly basis for their most remarkable vocal styles.
Most
of the time there is the absent-minded singing as if to themselves in a
crazy duettry that makes you think of those crazy twins that spend their
lives together never growing up at all and wearing white frilly dresses into
their late Sixties. But there are also hushed vocals, some strangely
harmonious out-of-tune-singing that has never been done better ever since
Freakwater stopped putting out records on an annual basis, and the distorted
vocals that sound as if they were time-warped from a live-for-the-radio
blues recording from the Twenties in some deep Southern station. This way
the come from angelic to irritating in just a few moments.
Somehow I hope that Cocorosie will give it up with music, at least in that form. I’d like “La maison de mon reve” as a one-off, to remain one of those beautiful gems hidden and honored in my record collection. I am afraid that any follow up will scratch the glimmer of beauty off of the music, making it a more regular and less outstanding release. I want to be able to pull this record off the shelf in just the right moment and atmosphere without having to chose between various records (thinking would destroy the moment completely). I want to be able to write a best of the decade list in a few decades and then remember this beautiful record to rightfully add mystery and enigma into the list of obvious records and usual suspects. I know, that is selfish, but that’s the way I want it. Do children ever act otherwise than selfish?
