One of Cocco’s greatest strengths is her use of extremes. She understands that a powerful moment becomes all the more intense when paired with its opposite. Her recent albums are more consistent in mood, but 1998’s surreal-sounding Kumuiuta had her most deft contrast.
The a capella lullaby “Chiisana Ame no Hi no Kuwamui” makes the sinister riffs of follow-up “Nureta Yurikago” even more cathartic. The explosive, terror-filled choruses of “Ratai” heighten the uneasiness of its ambiguous ending. “Unai” provides a cool-down after the grand “Raining.” The creak-filled “Rose letter,” about a bitter confrontation with a traitor, gives way to a children’s song about eating a farm pig before it’s sold off. Cocco snorts like a pig before the band kicks in, and she sings the lyrics in an adorable yet creepy deadpan.
That isn’t to say Kumuiuta is all an exercise in yin and yang. Some of its best moments are the moderate ones. “Tsuyoku Hakanai Monotachi” is a rocker reliant on an undulating rhythm instead of heavy riffs. The string instruments in “Utakata” set a tranquil mood but never overtake it.
Kumuiuta may not rock out as much as the albums bookending it, but it still packs quite the punch. The dreamy soundscapes don’t last long before they abruptly turn into nightmares.
Cocco’s major debut single from 1997, “Count Down,” is a heavy monster of a song that threatens a man who spurned the singer-songwriter. An unsettling, ticking drumbeat gives way to grungy guitar explosions as Cocco details the ways she will beat up the traitor, leaving him licking her toes and begging for forgiveness. The song ends with her counting down before she shoots the man, but we never get to find out his fate.
It’s getting harder to call Cocco just a musician. Though she’s been a jack-of-all-trades (and a master of them, too) for years, she increasingly splits her time between her writing, art and environmental activism. On top of that, she’s raising a child and overcoming ongoing mental illness. So it’s understandable that the Okinawan artist has been slow on the music. Though she contributed to other people’s music—she sang for Kiyoshi Takakuwa’s solo project, Curly Giraffe, and wrote a song for the pop idol alan at her request—Cocco didn’t release something of her own until nearly two years after Dugong no Mieru Oka. Cocco-san no Daidokoro, a music accompaniment to the artist’s same-titled book, was initially released as a digital EP in August and then as a disc in September. It has just four songs.
Sometimes you have to see musicians live to get them. I had previewed the bands playing the Far East to East Showcase at Webster Hall prior to the event on Sept. 27 , and Gelatine didn’t grip me instantly. My first impression, based off performance videos of singer Seiko shrieking and marching around in a diaper, was that the New York-based Japanese band belonged squarely to the subset of wacky Japanese punk rock, where the hyper music is matched by the band members’ eccentric stage presence. Though I enjoy several such bands, Gelatine didn’t strike me as adding anything new or distinctive to the formula.