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CocoRosie: Relishing The Avant-Garde

A love hate relationship that brings with it effortless charm and unconventional beauty.

Posted 19th April 2010, 4:48pm in Interviews, by Jasmine Phull
CocoRosie They’ve been described as Freak Folk yet find that term a little hard to swallow. CocoRosie is sisters Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie” and they relish in the sound of the avant-garde. They challenge the concept of beauty by creating music that is full of conflict. Often crass in nature the lyrics do little to compliment the ethereal music, instead they challenge it sticking out like a sore thumb. But like they say a little competition is always healthy. CocoRosie scratches beneath the surface, it indulges in ‘hard artificial sound’ that once ‘destroyed a little’ seems to become ‘weirdly human’. It’s about the Ying and Yang. The sisters and their music are the antithesis of a masterfully put together puzzle, they’re too spontaneous for that, instead they work from their imaginations a place that has no walls just limitless possibilities. Nothing is too far or too different. On stage the girls are very theatrical and in their video clips they are visually quite creative; they express themselves through drag and Bianca can often be seen sporting a moustache. CocoRosie inject an aspect of eccentricity, mysteriousness and a sense of androgyny into their music. The duo are open about past drug use and embrace different methods of exploring their inner consciousness; delving further into their imagination. CocoRosie is a love hate relationship that brings with it effortless charm and unconventional beauty.

Do you share the lyrics?
Sierra: We collaborate on almost everything.

Is there a paradox between the music and the lyrics?
Bianca: Yeah for sure. Our interest isn’t making things fit together really nicely. If there’s a beautiful musical structure it’s not likely that we’re going to create something that’s equally as beautiful. I think it’s like adding sugar to something that’s hard to swallow.

Which one is harder to swallow: The music or the lyrics?
Bianca: Either or. Usually the lyrics. I more of the lyricist and Sierra’s more involved with the music. She has a real stable sense of beauty. My solo work has a bit more of an aggresive side which could be considered ugly.

Are the lyrics based on life experiences?
Sierra: The main place we write from is our imaginations.

Where are you currently based?
Sierra: Right now we are based in NY. But we really don’t have home. But we really don’t have a home; we’re kinda vagbonds.

There’s quite a big gap between your last album and your impending one. Were you taking a break?
Sierra: Our first recording session we stayed up for five nights in Argentina. It was a spontaneous sessions and we recorded like 20 songs out of nowhere. We had no idea that we were ready to record music and after about 5-6 sessions we had so much music. That’s pretty much how we spent the first year out of the first two and a half. We had so much music to sift through and edit and we didn’t know what to do. We gave the music time on its own just to rest; we’re really surprised at what came out in the end.

In what way?
Sierra: We thought it was going to be a dance record; really up tempo but it ended up turning into a more serious and languid series of songs. Those are the songs that stuck out and became really important to us.

Why have CocoRosie been associated with the term Freak Folk?
Sierra: That term comes up a lot. I think it refers to a sort of anti-conservative, which is great, but aside from that we don’t really relate to that term.

I read that you don’t listen to music because you prefer silence. Is your music the closest thing to ‘silence’?
Sierra: We don’t listen to very much music. We weren’t raised with music, our parents weren’t very romantic in that respect. So the aspects that have attracted us to music have been totally personal and sometimes not musical. With our first record we started with a photograph of a building which is half demolished. We loved the way in which you are able to see each room and you can see the different wall papers and different colours because it’s really open. That photograph lead us into our first record La Raison.

You’ve also scored a couple of movies.
Sierra: Well one full score and then little pieces for a lot of movies, which is something we’re really passionate about. This winter we made a movie which we’re going to be scoring.

Your mother brought you up in a completly non-musical household. How does she feel about the life that you have created for yourself?
Sierra: She loves it. I think it’s pretty intense for her beacuse sh has an incredible voice. She’s never experiemented with singing; she grew up in a really conservative environment so was never supported as an artist or allowed any creative space.

Does she feature on the new album?
Sierra: Yes, on the song ‘Undertaker’. It’s a little sample we found of hers and from that we created this incredibly mystical song around her. She sings in Cherokee.

Will she be accompanying you on your European tour?
Sierra: I hope so but we haven’t really planned that tour yet.

Do you usually approach your tours in a not-so calculated way?
Sierra: We know we’re going to have a beat boxer, a creole based percussionist, playing alternative instruments like pots and pans, and pianist Gael Rakotondrabe who’s been playing with us for three years. He was a big part of this record. All the piano you hear on the new record is him; drunk and blindfolded fed crazy music through ear phones. He was just completely intoxicated.

So no inhibitions then?
Sierra: (Laughs). Well we wanted to challenge him. He’s like a prodigy pianist. He plays with so many musicians that we wanted this to be a completely different experience.

Is the recording environment important?
Sierra: I think we can record almost anywhere. Almost all the writing was done in the studio; improvised and on the spot. We wanted to know what would come out of us naturally in our most sincere moments. When we record the walls transform and become part of our imaginary space.

What would you have been if not half of CocoRosie?
Sierra: A sheepherder.

Seriously?
Sierra: Before I started this group that’s what I wanted to do. I was going to start in Switzerland; I found a guy who was going to let me apprentice starting with cows. Traditionally you have to apprentice for a couple of seasons. So they start you off with cows and then you move to sheep.

And are cows more timid than sheep?
Sierra: I guess cows are less dangerous cause sheep can run away and get eaten by wolves.
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