Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

CocoRosie

La Maison De Mon Reve

Label: Touch & Go Release Date: 05/04/2004

6354
nrobertson by Neil Robertson July 18th, 2004

They could be conjoined twins. One swathed with rose petals and romance movies, spraying sugar-sweet melodies in the air like the perfume of lost lovers. The other a croaking and callous femme fatale, feeding your ears false sweet nothings behind a bluesy summer-evening strum, sending you mixed messages; leading you on and letting you go. Both sharing the same withering heart.

CocoRosie both unnerve and bewitch in equal measure. Though their melodies may tickle with ethereal understatement and their words whisper and moan with quaint submissiveness, throughout their debut, these sisters manage to fill each musical crevice with traces of the unsettling and subversive. From its haunted lo-fi recording and funereal, paceless languor through to their tendency to line each track with the cackle of static, La Maison De Mon Reve is a record that always manages to keep you at arms-length – wary of the dirt beneath the fingernails of its feigned sweetness.

Reimagining 70’s folk as if it were influenced by the barbed blues of Billie Holliday and not the fey whimsy of Sandy Denny, the words on this record are less lyrics and more misanthropic mantras, repeated and re-sung while a stream of echoes and effects bubble endlessly beneath them. Emulating the cackle of 50’s vinyl, the acerbically ironic wiry blues of Jesus Loves Me sheds the words “Jesus loves me but not my wife, not their nigger friends or their nigger lives,” causing the same kind of shock as hearing a six-year-old say “shit.” If only Jack White was as capable of producing such a blatant attack on the white man’s hypocritical hijacking of black music.

Elsewhere, there are bum notes, looped samples, synthetic drum sounds and endless moments of shy, fumbling sweetheart beauty. Terrible Angels poses the question “if every angel’s terrible, why do you welcome me? _” above a clumsy plucked chord progression; _By Your Side pledges a life of dutiful devotion to its subject’s obsession (“I’ll scrub your floors, never be a bore, I’ll tuck you in, I do not snore”) and Lyla aches like a just-discovered jazz song sung by two lovestruck teenagers.

Though the songs are childlike and amateurish, and the musicianship non-existent, this enchanting record not only serves the kind of flawed and fascinating sonic palate that most acoustic troubadours would run a mile from, but it also hands the listener the kind of emotional complexity that consists of Real Life - a fraying thread between light and dark, romance, loss and nihilism. For that, Le Maison De Mon Reve stands as one of the most intriguing records you’ll hear this year.

An aural venus fly-trap, CocoRosie will tease you in, chew you up and spit you out – leaving you as confused and answerless as ever. But by the end of this album’s blissful forty minutes, you’ll only find yourself crawling back for more.

  • 8
    Neil Robertson's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Trademark

Want More

Mobback
6353
8487

Hell Is For Heroes

Transmit Disrupt

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND