CocoRosie – Union Chapel, London 04/05/2010

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By the time CocoRosie arrive stage at the Chapel, the room is dimmed down to darkness. Only a flickering projection illuminates the on stage performance with looped scenes of fairground swings and gloomy scary faces, Care Bears, Unicorns, Rainbows and all the other regulars from your average dream/nightmare scenario. It’s almost subliminal. But it fits the mood perfectly… The Union Chapel plays a perfect scene for the sisters, Bianca “Coco” and Sierra “Rosie” Cassady’s communion. These be the kooky sisters who arrived in the whole “girls-in-cutesy-dresses-and-headbands” scene waaaay before Joanna Newsom and Natasha Khan.

Sneaking on quietly, the sisters both captivated the audience from the first note of a set which drew mainly from their new 4th record Grey Oceans. The music was totally live with classical piano and harp accompanying human beatbox man machine, who expertly lays down the mouth percussion with effective precision and without the cringe worthy lameness you’d usually associate with such an act. (Please see: you, in the shower / trying to do a lame remix of your favourite song or mash up), sampled animal noises of “Meow”s and “Moo”s from their Fisher Price-esque kids toy, delicate acoustic guitar and strange childlike vocals. Sierra having studied at the Conservatoire de Paris to train as an opera singer makes full use of her schooling to great effect. Bianca on the other hand offers a more nasal, direct style akin with Joanna Newsom. It sure made for a refreshing contrast to hear such an enchantingly powerful voice booming out of a girl dressed in white drape, while her sister looked like she’s just been discharged from the Navy.

The new batch of songs from the record sound more polished and poppier. ‘Undertaker’ included a haunting refrain which Sierra echoed out like the most accomplished Primadonna could only hope. They also played the song ‘Hopscotch’ which involved the siblings acting as if they’re on the school playground, hand clapping each other to much “awing” effect. They pleased the long term fans by dropping the bittersweet ‘K-Hole’. As the evening developed, the mood turned less and less formal. The audience began to loosen up. The girl next to me was dancing like a lunatic, possessed, and people converged in the aisles to get a closer view. The set did occasionally begin to follow a pattern you would be oblivious to not notice. Where songs opened with pleasant enough chord progressions followed by beatboxing, rapping and operatic vocals bellowing over … It was a neat pattern and worked but needed something different to send us away. After the encore, they returned and closed with an unexpectedly mournful rendition of Kevin Lyttle’s Soca Ballad ‘Turn Me On’. No lie. It was just what was needed and the rapturous applause which saw them off in to the night was only fitting.

Photo by Gaelle Beri