it’s all in the nearly-glimpsed and maybe-imagined, the snatches of sound through next door walls, the dusk/dawn uncertain certainty of half-asleep and half-awake, the aimless chitter chatter of made-up kid stories. call them naifish if you will, pejoratively or not, but child-like approximates what cocorosie are, musically at least. the name, the voices, the toys used for sounds, the wonderfully amateur dress-up. existing in a world that’s as much peter weir’s picnic at hanging rock (all dreamy ether and haunted sensuality) as it is dark crystal (another world, another time, in the age of wonder…). definitely exhibits the same oddball puppetry wyrdness, the same sense of childish faerie and folk – as intricate as it is nonsensical at times. so tapes of cherokee singing and woodwind litter glitchy across undertaker and it’s semi-stream of conscious gaiman-esque storytelling.

“under what spell the guarding light betook the undertaker / under his gaze did fall such evil blunder / characters of flaming eyes eager to burn the wooden castle / eager towards the paper heart of children birds.”

that said, grey oceans isn’t as gossamer and gauzy and gawky as previous records. the addition of gael rakotondrabe on piano – and not a broken, dust-smeared one neither – brings a backbone to the sepia skeletal of old, using keys in much the same way mark linkous forged spine from six strings. i always thought of them as a kindof sparklehorse for girls anyway… so while they still sound like an old transistor radio chewing on memphis minnie’s ghost, they also slip into a simple regina spektor voice and key refrain once in a while. which offers some balance, something to cling to amongst the knots of kitten-string and tangled victorian lace…

don’t get me wrong, while like fellow feather-wearing goof devendra banhart, they’ve cleaned up for proper big label release, grey oceans is still not pop, and those irritated by them before are unlikely to be won over by the addition of some piano klingklang and reigned-in affection. actually scratch that. lemonade frankly is a pop song. or an approximation of one, that seems to belong to at least three other decades. it takes a minute to get going, wanders along with minimal plink then some brass swans in, and some fuzzy analogue squelch, and some nineteen thirties vox. it’s downbeat, it’s sad and seductive, it chimes with jazzy intent. it confuses and befuddles me.

but i guess that’s what i dig about them. it’s is the same thing i dig about michel gondry and kafka and clouddead. and when that dreamy unreality, that absurd (de)logic clicks with the firing synapses in hazy brain it’s a rather lovely sea to sink into. creaking with centuries-aged electroniks and woozy hiphop beats (it’d be quite comfy amongst the anticon alumni), harp and analogues, music-box ballerinas, beats and bedroom taped opera. consider grey oceans as chamber music for electric seances; a soundtrack for walking to field and forest through wardrobe doors.

cocorosie / sub pop / myspace