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CocoRosie Noah's Ark Released in 2005 7.9/10 Styles Folk Singer/Songwriter Ambient Song Highlights Tenko Love Song The Sea is Calm Honey or Tar |
CocoRosie, a two girl "folk" group, are apparently friends of Devendra Banhart, and are yet another of the plethora of artists that make up the "freak-folk" movement of musicians. Their second album, Noah's Ark seems to have experienced very mixed reviews across a variety of publications, being hailed as a masterpiece, canned as a total faliure, and just about everything in between. After only my first listen, I started to get a fair idea as to just why this album is so divisive. CocoRosie's music is quite vastly different to the sound which the scene brings to mind, yet I can guarantee that fans of freak-folk are the most likely to fully embrace Noah's Ark. The most noticable idiosyncrasy is the album's utterly stripped back production, and I'm not just talking about the "raw" production that characterises everything from garage to lo-fi. I'm talking about songs which are often so skeletal that they're barely there at all. On some tracks, such as "The Sea is Calm" and the gorgeously sentimental "Tenko Love Song," this technique yeilds a wonderful etherial quality which is quite entrancing, but there are a few moments on Noah's Ark when it can leave things feeling a little underdone. So the key production technique is a touch inconsistent, which is probably the album's major gripe. CocoRosie deserve kudos for taking such a creative leap and getting it right the majority of the time, because when they do, the results are breathtaking. Opening track "K-Hole" is solid, but is immediately overshadowed by "Beautiful Boys," which features Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), the first of several guest vocalists to appear on the album. Backed by sparse piano and distant, muffled percussion, Antony's resonant, androgynous vocals slip into the song comfortably. During the song's chills-inducing chorus, the three of them sing "All those beautiful boys / Kings and queens and criminal queers / All those beautiful boys / Tatoos of ships and tatoos of tears." The girls' vocal work is one of the album's biggest curiosities, their semi-feline, creaky, middle-pitched voices sure to delight some listeners as much as they'll drive others crazy. Just another totally divisive factor in an album full of them, but it's undoubtably a unique sounding vocal. The desolate feeling on Noah's Ark is complemented effectively by all manner of surreal production touches. French spoken-word passages, ringing telephones, meowing cats and nature-sounds are scattered throughout the album, driving the songs from sounding trippy into territory that is outright otherworldly. The album's only major, blundering misstep is "Bisounours," an awful pseudo-hip-hop experiment which feels unbearably out of place amongst the rest of the album's understated beauty. Anyway, that's what the skip button is for. "Tenko Love Song" is easily my personal favourite track. Stark, echoed strings open the song, playing a music-box melody that's sugary sweet and melancholy at once, while the lyrics tell the story of a dependent relationship with an uncaring lover. The desperation of "I'm a jailbird to your music / I'm a criminal in your prayer / I watch you in your sleep even when you're not there" leads into the closing of "Just to stop your eyes from falling them tears" conveying a saddening feeling of quiet, hopeless resignation. It's easily one of my favourite songs this year, and positioned halfway through Noah's Ark it also acts as the album's gorgeous emotional peak. So, a difficult album, then? Absolutely. Noah's Ark is likely to recieve all kinds of reactions, as a flawed, highly experimental attempted masterpiece which didn't quite make it past the finish line. I personally fall into the "loved it" camp, but with definite reservations nevertheless. CocoRosie should be applauded for their vision and creativity, and if they manage to learn from Noah's Ark's imperfections then we can almost certainly expect great things from them in the future. I'm not even going to try to decipher what's going on in the cover art. |