{"id":217982,"date":"2025-06-27T07:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T07:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217982\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T07:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T07:04:11","slug":"cocojoey-stars-album-review-pitchfork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217982\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocojoey: STARS Album Review | Pitchfork"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the opening track of STARS, Joey Meland offers something of a mission statement for their project Cocojoey<\/a>: \u201cToo many more directions to go and I just don\u2019t know how to pick a path.\u201d They sing these lines gently at first, over a placid keyboard fantasia, but over the course of the track\u2019s three-minute runtime, the delicate melodies build into black metal screams. The synths contort into acid-damaged drum\u2019n\u2019bass, then tilt-a-whirl prog-rock and feverish showtunes that feel like they\u2019re ripped from All That Jazz\u2019s deranged death dreams. It\u2019s unrelentingly paced and overstuffed with ideas; with each successive track, it feels like Meland is trying to push the gas pedal even further through the floor.<\/p>\n

Meland has always approached music with this twitchy restlessness. They learned to play the piano at age four, then darted deliriously between genres, recording classical compositions, black metal, and noise before graduating from high school. They earned a degree in composition and spent a decade playing in bands around Chicago, shifting between jazz, folk music, and funk\u2014trying a bit of everything without committing to anything in particular. Then, during COVID lockdown, they took a pause from their busy schedule and experienced what they describe as a \u201cspiritual transformation<\/a>.\u201d It led to a new clarity of purpose and the birth of Cocojoey\u2014an exuberant, genre-smashing solo project that looks back at the disparate threads of their past and asks: What if instead of spreading themselves thin across all these projects, they did it all at the same time?<\/p>\n

On their previous full-length, Cocojoey\u2019s World, Meland emerged with an oozy, embryonic version of the sound: gnarled riffs clawing their way out of video game synths like chestbursters on the Nostromo. For all its scattershot psychedelia, STARS\u2014Cocojoey\u2019s first album for the similarly genre-obliterating label Hausu Mountain\u2014feels more practiced and purposeful. The frayed fibers of Meland\u2019s interests are never more delicately woven together than on \u201cCOCOJOEY\u2019S LACK OF REGRETS,\u201d on which they dart between queasy sound design, fusion-y piano runs, dead-eyed rapping, and guttural death metal affectations. The track also features some twisted guitar work from recurring collaborator Fire-Toolz<\/a>, whose presence may help overwhelmed listeners understand just what kind of jittery, otherworldly sounds Meland is employing. Like Fire-Toolz\u2019s vibrantly overstimulating records, STARS toys with both devastating heaviness and cerebral prog nerdiness in a way that feels both considered and playful. Both collaborators build the component parts of their tracks like intricate Lego sculptures, then smash them together and giggle at the wreckage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the opening track of STARS, Joey Meland offers something of a mission statement for their project Cocojoey:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[31104,53,16,15,4715],"class_list":{"0":"post-217982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114754058073895876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}