Plants - "Photosynthesis"

Plants - Tumbleweed (Strange Attractors Audio House 2007)

Plants - Photosynthesis / Strange Attractors Audio House

The anticipation right from the off of Photosynthesis is part of what makes this album so special. This isn't your typical weirdo folk stuff, at least not right away. Part of what makes Plants so interesting is that this air of anticipation turns into an air of uneasiness as the album carries on. In some ways, it's an extension of the vibe popularly known from Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely." In others, it's just another solid release for an Oregon trio.

The Portland-bred band has been around for four albums now, actually. They are thoroughly established in their particular niche and, if they don't mind me saying so, appear to be as resolute and confident in the music they play as the marriage that holds the core of the band together. Molly Griffith-Blanchard and Joshua Blanchard is the marriage I speak of, and while I'm not sure how long they've been together, I like to imagine that they are quietly smiling to themselves as they scare the hell out of the listener with their own brand of psych-folk. One recent comment on their MySpace can attest to this, some bloke now "looking at the stuff in [his] yard a lot differently." There you have it. Plants: You'll never look at lawn ornaments the same way again.

Jesse Stevens is the third guy officially in Plants (Graeme Enkelis, the fourth current member, did not appear on this recording), though for Photosynthesis they enlisted a few other characters from in and around Portland to help record. Ben Buehler was most prominent among them, helping out with recording, bass, vocal and percussion duties His brother Jason played banjo and piano box, while Howard Gillam slipped in electric tones and Michael Braun-Hamilton worked with a singing saw. Basically, this album was born to be awesome. It's just that much more rewarding to find that the chummy hippie freewheeling of Matt Valentine and Erika Elder has been foregone in favor of some really dark, murky tones best evidenced on the organically unsettling "Roots." But the concept of this album, diving beneath the rocky terra firma of the West Coast acid-folk scene to weed out the Indian sitar roots as much as the backswamp Louisiana bayou folk, is excellently balanced between the instrumentals and the vocal tracks, between the strummed tunes you can remember and the ominous droning you can only remember as the breathers. One particular track, "Birdflowers" is virtually all windchimes and wind whooshing in and out. You never see it coming.

While their "pillow-prog odyssey" Double Infinity last year might have the cooler cover, Photosynthesis more concisely and accurately captures what this group is all about. It is the complete package, from the artwork to the music to the concept. It's haunting but not immediately frightening. It is what I wished more psych-folkers did. It's an album you owe to yourself to hear. Unlike the dynamics of the music, anticipation isn't as good as actually listening to it.