CocoRosie

The music made by Bianca (Coco) and Sierra (Rosie) Casady pelts the listener with such an array of different styles and influences that the closest order-loving critics have got to describing it is with the catch-all term of ‘freak folk’. Which is odd, because if there’s one strand running through tonight’s set, it’s the posturing and cadences of hip hop and R & B.

That’s not to discount the influence of opera, disco and indeed alt.folk on tonight’s set, but the hip grinding rhythms are so unrelenting throughout that it comes as little surprise when the girls and their backing band of pianist, percussionist and beatboxer break into a rendition of Kevin Lyttle’s 2003 crossover dancehall hit, ‘Turn Me On’. By the time Sierra sits down and adds a harp solo into this raunchy anthem of nightclub seduction, the crowd barely blinks. They’re too busy dancing. And gaping.

And gape they might, for there’s considerable talent on show here. Classically trained opera singer Sierra lets rip with her magnificent voice more than on record, providing a smooth counterpoint to the Bianca’s cracked, witch-like drawl. The latter’s delivery borders on rapping at times, a fact wonderfully at odds with the words, which are by turns childlike, mystical, lustful and downright strange – just like the sisters themselves.