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Beguiling bohemiansCocorosie, all dressed up with places to go
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American sisters and singer-songwriters Bianca Leilani “Coco” and Sierra Rose “Rosie” Casady have charmed, spooked and seduced listeners with their three albums, La maison de mon rêve (2004), Noah’s Ark (2005) and The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (2007). Their voices are strong and sweet (Sierra) and strange and soulful (Bianca), accompanied by acoustic guitar, harp, bass, synths and a variety of percussive children’s toys and noisemakers, with guest beatboxers to boot. The Casadys have spent the last two years working on a new record (more beautiful, musical and meditative, according to Bianca), which is due out in the spring, but Bianca has also been occupied with her Voodoo Eros label, Vicky’s Tea Gallery in Paris and her own visual art, which has been exhibited in New York and several European cities. She says that all her creative energy, regardless of the discipline, comes from the same place. “It’s all very interchangeable, even within our music projects,” she says, alluding to the Cocorosie cover art, videos, costumes, make-up and lighting that she creates, usually in conjunction with Sierra. “I do a lot of installation art so I approach the stage as an installation opportunity, and dressing up and dealing with personal identity is a big part of our music project and my visual art world.” In the documentary The Eternal Children (2006), Bianca wears a pencil moustache and menswear, linking her to the doc’s other gender-bending subjects, Devendra Banhart and Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons). Despite the disparity of their styles and scenes, the three acts were tight, for a time. “It’s definitely changed, as it always does,” Bianca says. “It was partly geographical, it was partly timing. We were a bunch of spring chickens coming out in the same spring.” Being transient (on tour and in studios around the world), and based primarily in Paris, Cocorosie’s scene affiliations have been fleeting, but that could change with their upcoming relocation. “It’s been a part of our process and our lifestyle—there’s no real division between work and non-work,” she says. “We’ve been away so long, but now that we’re back in New York, we feel like we’re gonna anchor ourselves here.” WITH KATIE STELMANIS AT LE NATIONAL |
