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Articles and Reviews: MUSIC
The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn
by CocoRosie (Touch and Go)
Antony also turns up on Paris/New York residents Bianca
and Sierra Casady’s third offering, on closer
‘Miracle’, while Bianca’s erstwhile
boyfriend, Devendra Banhart, contributes the song
‘Houses’. The girls would probably not
fight shy of admitting a Bjork influence, merging
as they do opera and hip hop. Indeed, although recorded
in the south of France, the album was finished in
Reykjavik under the direction of Björk/Bonnie
Prince Billy producer Valgeir Sigurdsson, who has
given a cleaner finish to the (un)usual confection
of found sounds, folk-blues, trip-hop and girlish
pop. Not that the whimsy doesn’t also carry
over into moments of uncanny scariness, in the best
tradition of fairytale, with the street-smart hip-hop
contributions of Bianca somehow the perfect foil for
trained opera singer Sierra’s dulcet tones.
In the mash up, themes common to both genres –
love, death, vengeance, hubris and fantasy –
murkily emerge. Tasty.
First published in Magill magazine, October/November
2007