Watch: CocoRosie Drop Hallucinatory Video For “Gravediggress”

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CocoRosie make music that could serve as the soundtrack for a Luis Buñuel film (if only the infamous director were still alive). But since Buñuel is dead, Bianca Casady, one of the two sisters who comprise CocoRosie, has taken matters into her own hands. She’s directed  “Gravediggress,” the third video for Tales Of A Grass Widow, the duo’s latest album, which was released earlier this year. 

Writing about the video on YouTube, Casady says, “Shot in Southern France, spanning several different seasons, The Gravediggress emerges from the imagination of the clown. Played and danced by Biño Sauitzvy, The Clown oscillates between young and old, innocent and deranged. Our mother plays the masked Gravediggress who’s stuffed hands struggle at menial tasks such as picking wheat and taking laundry from the line. The narrative is a loose journey thru the psyche of a lonely outcast who finds ecstasy and company in nature. The filming was spontaneous though it took much more time than a typical music video and without the pressure of a studio and crew we were able to wander and shoot in this way. We let the work steep and revisited the project months later for another stage of development. My working relationship with Biño, a Brazilian choreographer based in Paris, who has also trained in circus and clowning, started in 2011 when we developed Nightshift, my first theatrical work. We also started then to discover in dance, the brokenness of the outcast. He played a homeless-drunk, clown called Hummingbird Man. I have worked on many videos over the last 14 years and have shot many of them in this same location but this is my most narrative attempt to date. I prefer to shoot intimately, just me and the other and the force of the elements. Some times our hands got frozen cold, or we got attacked by swarms of mosquitos, spiders crawled out of every hole and we truly marveled over the moon and pink sky.”

Thanks Stereogum.

About Michael Goldberg

Michael Goldberg is a distinguished pioneer in the online music space; Newsweek magazine called him an ‘Internet visionary.’ In 1994 he founded Addicted To Noise (ATN), the highly influential music web site. He was a senior vice-president and editor in chief at SonicNet from March 1997 through May 2000. In 1997, Addicted To Noise won Webby awards for best music site in 1998 and 1999, and also won Yahoo Internet Life! awards for three years running as best music site in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Prior to starting Addicted To Noise, Goldberg was an editor and senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine for 10 years. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Esquire, Vibe, Details, Downbeat, NME and numerous other publications. Michael has had three novels published that comprise the "Freak Scene Dream trilogy": "True Love Scars," "The Flowers Lied" and "Untitled" which can be ordered here. His new book, "Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey," can be pre-ordered from HoZac Books. In November Backbeat Books will publish "Addicted To Noise: The Music Writings of Michael Goldberg," which can be be pre-ordered here.

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