The Mind is a Bird in the Hand Cover

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Our Take

Plants is a musical and spiritual collaboration of a husband and wife team: Josh Blanchard and Molly Griffith. Both are extraordinary musicians. Molly is classically trained and uses her voice in addition to the cello, hapsichord, and piano. Josh has his roots in indie-avant-acid-psycho-pop movement. Both are very active in Portland’s music scene. Together they create an intriguing psychedelic folk sound with a strong spiritual component based on their mutual interest in folklore, nature, animals, plants, mythology, cults, religious rituals, and the supernatural. Plants is clearly influenced by modern ambient composers, 60’s acid folk, ancient musical texts, Can, Faust, and Donovan.

They are undeniably psychedelic—maddeningly psychedelic—full of all sorts of sonic tricks and swirls that make their sound live. Their latest Audio Dregs-released album, “The Mind is a Bird in the Hand,” brims over with quavering, baroque arrangements, tremulous medieval sounds, and a slow-building aesthetic as gentle as a summer breeze through long grass. It’s a natural, earthy sound, spacey like Pink Floyd, and layered like Godspeed.

Any time you’re looking for something ethereal, haunting, intense, moody, pure, otherworldly with melancholy lyrics and instrumental soundscapes, check out Plants. You won’t be dissapointed.

Band Talk

Plants Group Portrait
Josh Blanchard Singer
Guitar
Molly Griffith Cello
Piano

Portland, Oregon’s Plants are a psychedelic folk act that blend ethereal acoustic textures with melancholy lyrical beauty; employing strings, organs, flutes and bells they create a sound that’s quietly intense, like the sound of a storm in the distance. It’s their own kind of personal folk music for their an imagined world of half conscious dreams, living forests and mystical creatures.

The band is the brainchild of singer and guitarist, Josh Blanchard’s and cellist and pianist Molly Griffith’s musical and romantic partnership. Molly is classically trained in medieval music and harpsichord and has played in the past with Portland notables such as The Decemberists and 31 Knots. Joshua has spent ten years crafting pop songs and hallucinatory electronic pieces, from the acidic Point Line Plane (Skin Graft) to previous efforts with avant-psychde band The Mome Raths. It’s their mutual love of things, both very old and very new, that keeps the band fresh as Plants collect ideas from modern ambient composers, 60’s acid folk voyages, and ancient musical texts.

Recorded one rain and whiskey soaked Oregon springtime, the group’s debut album “The Mind is a Bird in the Hand” is an achingly restrained and moody affair. From the brooding opener “Acorn Child” to the closing chords of fantasy-folker “Invisible Islands”, the record explores themes of redemption and turning darkness into light. The record hosts a great cast of subtle guest performances by Michael Hendrickson, Brian Foote, and Jason Buehler. It is mastered by respected “folktronica” guru, Greg Davis.

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