I admit it took me a while to warm up to this duo. I guess I have to blame the beards. Before Malmö I still had this resistment to them, though my girl friend had weakend my barriers some, by playing their music every now and then. Still I was reluctant to admit that they were great and kept them in the "interesting" category.
It was a cold and very windy evening in Malmö. Summer had departed just a few days ago and autumn was greeting us with a cold hand. Malmöfestivalen seemed like a really strange place for CocoRosie. A town festival mainly targeted at families who prefered listening to coverbands playing the classics at the big stage a few hundred meters away. The freaks had to gather in the outskrits of the festival, just beyond the two merry-go-rounds and the sidestalls and games.
The two sisters enters the stage accompinied by two guys. One sits down behind some synths and the other just stands there with a microphone. Then he starts to make strange sounds and I realise that he is a beatboxer. Normally a funny, interesting oddity that works for one song, but this guy provided the rythm for the whole show using only his mouth and voice - impressive!
But it's the voices of the two sisters that provides the real magic. One angel-like and almost operaesque, and the other a bit harsher with a strange, childish quality. Inspiration for the songs seems to come from all over the place, ranging from opera and folkmusic all the way to hip-hop.
After a few songs I get drawn in by the music and all the external stuff ceases to matter. The music alone is breath taking, beautifully weird and seems to be from another world. A world where Bianca and Sierra Casaday rules, and make music from harps and toys. A world I suddenly wan't to be part of and that suddenly seems to make very good sense. I leave converted and a true believer.