CocoRosie and Anohni greet the Trump administration ‘with a mob of women and children armed with forks and knives’
Citing the urgency of the moment while calling for participation in Saturday’s nationwide Women’s March, the avant pop band CocoRosie has issued a new indictment of the incoming Trump administration, “Smoke ’Em Out,” as if to lob a musical Molotov in advance.
According to a note by Bianca and Sierra Casady, the sibling team that is CocoRosie, the track was issued “as a means of participation during these turbulent yet invigorating times” and decries Trump without saying his name aloud.
Featuring the increasingly political voice of singer and songwriter Anohni, “Smoke ’Em Out” is designed to greet “the new character who will be occupying the White House with a mob of women and children armed with forks and knives,” the Casadys continued.
Calling the election of Trump “an unnatural disaster,” they said that they “feel a call to rise, shout, and burn the house down.”
The specifics of their case are less clear. Unlike Anohni’s most recent album, “Hopelessness,” which doesn’t mince words in her critique of the state of the world, “Smoke ‘Em Out” is delivered via semi-rapped, semi-sung and loosely connected couplets by CocoRosie, with Anohni delivering a vocal hook.
They sing of “a rat trap snapping back” and “baloney sandwich lonely clowns,” of “slaughter raging death dice” and “foes upon foes.”
Will it convince many Americans to reassess the country’s future? Perhaps not. As a measure of the times, however, “Smoke ’Em Out” burns.
For tips, records, snapshots and stories on Los Angeles music culture, follow Randall Roberts on Twitter and Instagram: @liledit. Email: [email protected].
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