CocoRosie’s La Maison De Mon Rêve (2004), a charmingly strident debut of classically trained operatic vocals, junk percussion, misfiring cassette decks in bathroom studios, was an enjoyable shock (Joanna Newsom released her Milk-Eyed Mender – and Phish broke up – around the same time, leading you to wonder about the power of leap years). However, as is usually the case with something “new” performed by confident oddballs who dress in strange, juxtaposed costumes (that actually mirror CR’s musical eclecticism), they quickly earned the oft-misused label “pretentious.” And with each new record, audiences spend more time in scrutiny over the intent of the work than simply deciding whether or not they enjoy the duo’s music (”do I really like this, or do I like how weird it is, or do I not like how weird it is, or do I simply think that wearing du-rags with Native American headdresses and fake beards is stupid…” etc.)

Grey Oceans will not change this dilemma, as the sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady plus a few guests (jazz pianist Gael Rakotondrabe, Argentine drummer Bolsa) improvise another trek through their active imaginations, doing whatever makes sense (or not) to them that day. For “Lemonade” they blend piano balladry with analog machines, trombone stabs, Bianca’s garbled child voice, R&B synth leads and Sierra’s background-mixed ’40s croon; the lilting falsetto, dabs of subdued autotune, glockenspiel and slight funk of “R.I.P. Burnface” almost works as Feist B-side (read: something she might do with Beck’s Record Club project); they wrap a 30-year plus recording of their mother (singing a Cherokee folk song) in a dull pulsing thud, melancholy synthetic sax and talk of candy and “pitbull butterfly do dah, do dah, do dah” on “Undertaker”. Drum ‘n’ bass rhythms follow honky-tonk and adopted sickly sweet Shirley Temple babydoll-ness (”Hopscotch”) Chipmunks pitch-shifting…and on. You get it.

Like filmmaker Matthew Barney or photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, the sisters are still part of an elite cadre of artists who can make something intriguing enough to command a reaction and questions on both sides of their fence. And isn’t that the point of creativity?

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