CocoRosie

Few bands in modern music have a origin story as compelling as CocoRosie. In early 2003, Bianca Casady made an unplanned visit to her sister Sierra's tiny apartment in the Montmartre district of Paris, reconnecting with her for the first time in nearly a decade. What followed was an instinctive creative explosion. The two sisters retreated to Sierra's bathroom — chosen for its isolation and acoustics — and began crafting music using a single microphone, a broken pair of headphones, traditional instruments, and an array of found objects including children's toys. Neither sister had planned to make a record. Yet from that spontaneous reunion emerged one of the most distinctive sounds in contemporary music.

The Casady sisters' backstory is as unconventional as their music. Born to an Iowan artist and healer named Christina Chalmers, Sierra on June 9, 1980, in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Bianca on March 27, 1982, in Hilo, Hawaii, the sisters grew up in a world of near-constant movement. Their mother, who nicknamed them "Rosie" and "Coco" — the names that would eventually define their band — moved the family almost annually across Hawaii, Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Their childhood was shaped by New Age spirituality, Native American ceremonial experiences, and a deep sense of otherness that both sisters have acknowledged left a lasting mark on their artistic sensibilities. Sierra eventually moved to Rome at seventeen to study opera privately, later attending the Conservatoire de Paris, while Bianca immersed herself in New York's literary underground. By the time Bianca arrived on Sierra's doorstep in Paris, the two had barely spoken in years.

The music they created together resists easy categorization. Critics and commentators have variously described CocoRosie's sound as folktronica, freak folk, and New Weird America — labels that only partially capture the scope of their work. Sierra's classical opera training weaves through compositions that also incorporate blues, electronica, hip hop, and avant-garde experimentation. Their debut album, La Maison de Mon Rêve, released in 2004 through Touch and Go Records after the label pursued and persuaded the sisters to sign, arrived to unexpected critical acclaim. The sisters had originally planned to press only a handful of copies for friends. Instead, they found themselves at the vanguard of a new wave of experimental folk music.

Their second album, Noah's Ark, released in 2005, expanded their world significantly. It featured collaborations with Anohni of Antony and the Johnsons on the track Beautiful Boyz, folk artist Devendra Banhart on Brazilian Sun, and French rapper Spleen on Bisounours. The album was recorded across multiple locations as the sisters traveled, its restless geography mirroring the nomadic spirit that had defined their childhoods. The following year, CocoRosie returned with their third album, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson, longtime collaborator of Björk. Recorded at their mother's farm in the Camargue region of France, the album drew deeply on family history, including tributes to their deceased older half-brother Simon Casady. It charted across several European countries, cementing the band's international reputation.

By 2010, CocoRosie had signed with Sub Pop Records and released their fourth album, Grey Oceans, which reached number 24 on the French charts. Their fifth album, Tales of a GrassWidow, followed in 2013 on City Slang Records, again performing strongly in France and elsewhere in Europe. Throughout this period, the sisters continued to broaden their artistic reach, composing theatrical scores for celebrated avant-garde director Robert Wilson, including productions of Peter Pan at the Berliner Ensemble and The Jungle Book in Luxembourg. Their sixth album, Heartache City, released in 2015 on their own imprint Lost Girl Records, was preceded by years of anticipation and marked an important step toward artistic and commercial independence.

Tragedy visited the band during the recording of their seventh album, Put the Shine On, released in 2020. Their mother, Christina Chalmers, passed away in January 2017, just eleven days after recording backing vocals for the track Ruby Red, a song written about her life. The album, when it finally arrived, carried the emotional weight of that loss. In August 2021, further hardship struck when a forest fire destroyed the Casady family home, taking with it their mother's artwork, family photographs, and a collection of musical instruments and recording equipment. The sisters launched a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild, demonstrating both their resilience and the deep community of support they had cultivated over nearly two decades.

Throughout their career, CocoRosie has performed at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in the world, including the Olympia and Grand Rex in Paris, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and major European festivals such as Pukkelpop and Lowlands. In 2009, music magazine Better Propaganda named them the sixteenth most influential artist of the decade. Their music has found its way into film scores, fashion runways, and theatrical productions across the globe, demonstrating a cultural reach that extends far beyond the indie music world. With their eighth studio album, Little Death Wishes, released in March 2025, CocoRosie continues to evolve, remaining as defiantly original as the day two estranged sisters began singing into a single microphone in a Parisian bathroom.