the cherry blossoms with josephine foster

the cherry blossoms with josephine foster - s/t (no label no cat, 2007)

Hard to think of any other contemporary artists that share the same kind of vision of maverick American folk forms so completely as Josephine Foster and The Cherry Blossoms, so this collaboration with Nashville's premier psychedelic jug band should come as an absolute dream hook-up for fans of primitively rendered joy shapes. Parts of this sound like rehearsal tapes from the EPI Velvet Underground blats, with Lou Reed running the group through folk-punkers like "It's Alright, The Way That You Live" and "Temptation Inside Your Heart" while Kenneth Anger attempts to inaugurate the first meeting of the Fugs chorus girls in a massed choir version of Shaker hymnals. Others - particularly the ones led by Josephine's timelessly beautiful vocals - sound like the kind of fantasy acid/folk cult sides that might've come out of a particularly culturally removed commune circa 1968 USA. The Cherry Blossoms choir inevitably takes everything off into whole new zones of liberated vocalese and free-form freakout while that same black streak that deformed their debut LP on Black Velvet Fuckere makes other, darker corners of the session sound more like the Jandek big-band plays early American hypnotics in the style of The Godz. I can't think of anyone with a deeper connection to the most mysterious and intuitive springs of modern avant-brut sound than these guys and this is a near perfect rendering of the sound you've long felt echoing around the loneliest zones of your brain. This limited edition CD-R is privately released by the group themselves and comes with full-colour card sleeves.

Con The Cherry Blossoms la sirena Josie se reinventa una vez más. Parece como si estuviesen trasteando con el caos, a la big band sólo le quedan instrumentos de mentirijilla y juegan a ver que pasa, como en el snow-folk pero con más luces por el camino. A los lejos se ve a The Golden Dawn, Bonzo Dog Band o The Fugs que se cruzan como destellos de un acid-folk curiosamente introspectivo. Josephine recita ya desde fuera de la cueva y su eco llega al pantano, donde los chicos corren con sus juguetes.