CocoRosie's Cher like auto-tune vocals made me a little hesitant at first listen with the intro/chorus of their song "God Has a Voice, She Speaks Through Me" off their upcoming fourth album (2009) on Touch and Go records. My hesitation slipped away when I realized that the song was continuously repeating in my head hours after listening in which I gratefully give these gals props for a memorable melody. These sisters got their nicknames Coco (Bianca Leilani) and Rosie (Sierra Rose) from their mother. The androgynous "out" younger sister Bianca uses toddler barnyard noisemakers to produce animal sounds. Some songs are spoken in a cute almost rap like style by the former model Bianca while the classically trained opera singer Sierra softly sings in others.
Their problematic childhood is apparent in songs like "Werewolf" off The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (April 2007). It is a sad historic biography of what it was like for the girls after their father had cheated and divorced their mother and then left the young girls (5 and 3 years old) to try and fill in the gaps he left behind. At age 14, Sierra was kicked out of her mother's house and sent to boarding school by her father. Sierra lost contact with Bianca at this stage in her life and moved to Paris, France to pursue opera singing. At age 20 Bianca decided to travel the world and unexpectedly showed up at Sierra's apartment in Paris. For the next two months these two huddled in their bathroom and completed their debut album La maison de mon rêve (2004).
Although this new song "God Has a Voice, She Speaks Through Me" sounds light, the substance is quite dark. Tired of the patriarchy, CocoRosie claim the significance of the song is that God is a female not a male. It is a suicide story that "takes place in a tender and elated moment of innocence, focusing on releasing and returning to Mother Nature."
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