Songs for when the whole world feels down on its luck.
CocoLarosa [koh-koh-lah-roh-sah] is a two-time Fraser Valley Music Awards People’s Choice Award-winning songwriter from Surrey, British Columbia. His musical journey is interesting because, despite an early start in songwriting, he worked as a marine mechanic for almost twenty years before finally performing his work in public. His debut album, The Valley of Tongues, funded by FACTOR (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recording), was recorded live off the floor with minimal studio intervention. Its laid-back atmosphere is created through the exclusive presence of CocoLarosa’s rich voice and acoustic guitar playing, allowing the lyrics to take on a central role in the compositions.
From the melancholy start, the singer taps into a very modern neurosis, in which a vast number of open fronts bring about a sense of doom and gloom. Even when singing about commonplace topics, there seems to be an abundance of themes unexpectedly popping up to add to an increasingly heavy mental load. Perhaps no song on the album expresses this idea as clearly as Peace of Mind, which encapsulates the prevailing perspective in a few key lines:
“Oh I worry, worry
I worry all the God damn time
It’s like a prayer for what you fear
It’s like a cure for peace of mind”
The Valley of Tongues indeed yields a crop of stories that sprout in fertile soil, so that, even if overall the album might have benefitted from a wider sonic palette, there are enough ideas of interest to make you want to return and retrace the lyrics for hidden meanings and fresh associations.
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