"Plants play a mystical brand of psychedelic folk whose solemn, droning beauty and stately pace recall Six Organs of Admittance and Pearls Before Swine at their most pastoral and intense."
Dave Segal, The Stranger

"Plants alchemize hazy, stoned, sylvan folk and ambient sound into warm, shimmering, psychedelic gold."
Adam Gnade, The Portland Mercury

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PLANTS - Totem CDR
[animalpsi.com] US

Far more grounded (it's ironic, not a pun), Plants are from Oregon and they play a serious west coast collective jam, sprouted from the Americana wanderings of Jackie-O Motherfucker and a history of modern escapism. On this recording they acted as a septet, but apparently they’ve since pared down to four, and are sometimes cited as the very core group of Josh Blanchard and Molly Griffith. The group chant of opening piece “Spirit Animal Gestalt” strikes an immediate chord of familiarity crossing space and time, from wartime communes across the globe to the modern celebrity of WWVV - yet a deeper listen reveals a practiced, almost baroque structure to the voices, enhanced by sweeps of cello drone. Signaled by shaker percussion, the group switches tools entirely - the sounds of lifted instruments an audible treat – and breaks into the Appalachia folk instrumental of JOMF with flutes, plucked strings, and a brighter incarnation of cello. A number of airier/more experimental tracks intercede, liberally colored by field-recordings and room noise, sometimes materializing into actual song, as in the middle eastern dance “Keeper of the Keys”, the band moving from open ambience to dervish then back into a back porch strummer. I’m reminded of an earthier version of personal favorites, Anvil Salute, or perhaps a Hush Arbors backing band playing with out their musty lead. Perhaps the most action you’ll find on the disc, “1000 Swarms” is a mad bout of percussion in what sounds to be a ballet studio but is actually an old military bunker, a million shaking fragments drizzled over the deeper pulse of hand-beaten drums, a slight guitar and horn mantra joining followed by a small army of voices – think the Godspeed dynamic with a tribal agenda. The outro reprise “Animal Spirit Gestalt” picks up in a similar place that the last left off, a harpsichord and chimes playing leisurely as if by wind until dark clouds form with flute cries and polyphonic, hand-clapped beats, again following a building progression which makes for intense release. An interesting take on the scene, ‘Totem’ brings subtle, unique innovation to the fantastic yet often glutted world of psychedelic folk. Stamped CDr comes in a bright, weird, color-screened arigato pak with art by E*Rock. Limited to 100 copies. Dig it.

Plants The Mind is a Bird in the Hand (Audio Dregs)
Autre Directions (FR)

New signature on AudioDregs, Plants is a duet free-folk of Oregon which straightforwardly dissociates other artists already present on the American label.

Formed by the guitarist and singer Josh Blanchard, escaped of Plane Line Point (Skin Graft), and by the pianist/violonist Molly Griffith (already crossed at the sides of excellent Decemberists), Plants fits in the current of these new hippies groups which célébrent nature, create a little impromptu, dronic and hallucinatory pops songs, and which remmettent the psychedelism and mysticism with the style of the day. Long and emmellés hair, bores and skirts with flower: Blanchard and Griffith do not make the things with half and offer on The Mind Is A Bird In The Hand a music come straight of the Seventies.

In their trip néofolk, two nice anachronisms that here do not neglect the form with the profit of the bottom: the pretty songs of Seedlings, sung regularly by their two joint votes, present worked arrangements (small bells, flutes, keyboard…) and show themselves thus completely evocative of an old Eden, lost then found.

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Nouvelle signature sur AudioDregs, Plants est un duo free-folk de l’Oregon qui se démarque carrément des autres artistes déjà présent sur le label américain.
Formé par le guitariste et chanteur Josh Blanchard, échappé de Point Line Plane (Skin Graft), et par la pianiste/violoniste Molly Griffith (déjà croisée aux côtés des excellents Decemberists), Plants s’inscrit dans le courant de ces nouveaux groupes hippies qui célébrent la nature, créent des pops songs un peu improvisées, droniques et hallucinatoires, et qui remmettent le psychédélisme et le mysticisme au goût du jour. Cheveux longs et emmellés, barbe et jupes à fleur : Blanchard et Griffith ne font pas les choses à moitié et offrent sur The Mind Is A Bird In The Hand une musique venue tout droit des années 70.
Dans leur trip néofolk, les deux gentils anachronismes que voilà ne négligent pas la forme au profit du fond : les jolies chansons de Plants, chantées régulièrement par leurs deux voix conjointes, présentent des arrangements travaillés (clochettes, flûtes, clavier...) et se montrent ainsi tout à fait évocatrices d’un Eden ancien, perdu puis retrouvé.

Plants The Mind is a Bird in the Hand (Audio Dregs)
Risen Magazine (March)

Plants (Portland-bred) is an epic piece of moaning,
sighing, dew-wet psychedelia. It’s a big organic
forest hike through buzzing drones and quivering
strings and acoustic guitars straight out Renaissance
music’s moody instrumental tone poems. Singer Joshua
Blanchard sails somewhere between Sunshine
Superman-era Donovan and Marc Bolan’s most ethereal
and fantasy-tinged. Together with his sweetheart,
Molly Griffin, he builds a sturdy nest of gorgeous,
simmering, bubbling, Middle Earth music. The Pacific
Northwest has its share of psychedelic bands but, with
The Mind, Plants look to be moving towards the higher
ranks. If all goes as it has been, their future is
nowhere but tasting thin, pale air at the very top of
it all. -Adam Gnade

Plants - The Mind Is A Bird In The Hand
Audio Dregs
[CMJ] USA
Spastic Portland noise-punk duo Point Line Plane went on hiatus last year and, to fill the void, singer Josh Blanchard formed this dreamy freak-folk band with girlfriend Molly Griffith (formerly a cellist for the Decemberists). The resulting collaboration is one of the haziest, gauziest, loveliest records of the year. To say this album is depressant-friendly is an understatement. The droning, sometimes unintelligible vocals usually come in after two or three minutes of bells, flutes and strings. And when the lyrics can be understood, they are usually about faeries, elves or other things cooked up during an epic DJ battle. By combining the sounds of old-school heads like Love and Donovan with the modern tape-damaged murk of Akron/Family and Ariel Pink, Plants have carved a nice little home for stoner-nerd bliss.
-- Courtney Harding

Plants Live 02.10.06
Towne Lounge (Portland)
Looserecord.com (web zine)
words: dalas verdugo
photos: Jason Quigley

Shows start too late for old fogeys like me. I tried
to kill time before the Plants show by sitting in a
nearby McDonald’s watching a CNN report about a little
boy who medically cannot feel pain. After I thought
enough time had passed, I walked to the venue, which
totally tricked me by looking like some kind of
historic courthouse or something.
I was way too early.
After a trip back to my house to waste more time, I
met up with my photographer, Jason, outside the venue.
We entered and soon met Plants’
singer/guitarist/button masher Joshua Blanchard, a
really positive energy kind of dude.
I got a scotch at the bar and talked to Jason about
the end of the world and how Jason thinks Portland is
losing its edge to folks who just move here to live in
the suburbs. The mirrored walls in the Towne Lounge
were fucking with me, because I still don’t totally
understand how mirrors work. Why is it that sometimes
you can see things that are next to the mirror in the
mirror? Shouldn’t an object have to be in front of a
mirror to be reflected? These are questions my brain
will never accept answers for. Anyways, my attention
was soon directed to the stage, as World began their
set.

World is Adam Forkner and Honey Owens. Adam rocked the guitar tones and feedback, while his girl Honey (is
that sexist, making her seem like his property? Shit,
sorry!) laid down a vocal bed and contributed some
guitar herself. World is basically some pedal-gazing
noise that has a solid tone to it. You know, noise
that still has some relation to our concepts of
intervals and harmony and all that. Honey hit some
real Joplin moments at times, which was nice, and the
kids had their dynamics down pretty tight.
Eventually, Adam fed a heavy guitar riff to his Line 6
delay, and that led to a more structured rock-out that
closed the set.

Did I mention that no one in the bar (including
myself) had non-dark hair? What’s up with Portland and
dark hair, dark stubble, dark clothes? Jesus, guys,
you’re bumming me out.

Anyways, next on stage was Plants. Let me just say
that Plants win right from the start by having a
drummer that also plays flute. Whut? I would describe
Plants as world-music goes drone. They lay down the
drones with regional flavors. They give you a celtic
drone, then hit you with some Tibetan drone. Next they
take it to gypsy drone, and then you’re at the
Renaissance Faire (I fucking love mead!).
If you like interestingly textured, meditative tones
that hearken to a far off place, you’d dig it. I have
to criticize something though, as much as I don’t want
to hate on these nice kids. Josh really needs to sing
from a more primal place. Really, man, feel that
reptile brain and sing from it. Someone told me his
last band was all about screaming, so maybe that’s why
he’s going the other way.

Oaxacan was last, but their first song sounded like
total fucking trash. So, you guys are into sudden
starts and stops and you have a girl screamer that is
obviously too cool for herself? Thanks, but I’ll just
go to bed.
And I did.

PLANTS - The Mind is a Bird in the Hand CD
Loop.cl (Chile)

This is the debut on Audio Dregs of Portland, Oregon’s duo, made up of Josh Blanchard, singer and guitarist and Molly Griffith on cello and piano who studied medieval music and harpsichord. Also there are guest musicians: Michael Hendrickson [Jackie O Motherfucker, Brian Foote [Nudge] and Jason Buehler [Nice Nice].
It seems that with this album Audio Dregs label is not exploring only the electronic field but other musical genres.

Certainly folk music for few years now has nourished an emergent scene that has its referring in 70’s minimalism, free improvisation and psychedelia. A greater notoriety had when The Wire’s journalist and writer David Keenan baptized this movement like free-folk in his article ‘New Weird America’. Although this is anecdotal, because folk music has always existed but is the faithful reflection of what has happened in the music history.
With instruments composed of bells, strings, flutes and organs give form occurs to two slopes that coexist in this disc. On one hand a more naive, with songs of gorgeous melodies but on the other, more intense, mystical and dark. Thus the titles of the songs, like ‘The Cave’, ‘Evil Spirit’, ‘The coming storm has passed’, nevertheless the title of the album ‘The mind is a bird in the hand’ raises in my concept that the mind its make for the imagination and precisely is what the music of The Plants transmits.
Link of interest www.audiodregs.com
Text Guillermo Escudero
March 200