Josie Cotton knows that pop music thrives on unlikely combinations. An upbeat, catchy chorus combined with a hip hop bridge shouldn’t work, but it does. But genre bending doesn’t usually cross this far: for her new single, ‘Ukrainian Cowboy’, she blends a twangy baritone guitar and a country-inspired melody with the deep-voiced chants and buoyant rhythms of Russian folk music. It sounds bizarre when written down, but believe us when we say, it works.
Josie Cotton’s vocals betray her new wave roots, and her devotion to film noir; the melody meanwhile harks back to girl groups, Nancy Sinatra…and the Bolshoi Ballet. It’s a true merger of east and west, and crosses cultural boundaries as much as musical ones.
The music video for ‘Ukrainian Cowboy’ see the costumes and performances come from steamier side of Hollywood. The star appears in the very first frame in a replica ’60s B-movie poster, and dresses the part perfectly, she gallops through the rest of the footage, high in the saddle while an electric guitar is strapped to her back. She’s not riding her horse through the Old West however. Instead, she runs into Russian dancers, soldiers, titles in Cyrillic, and the domes of Eastern Orthodox churches. There’s even a bear, playing a balalaika no less. It all works together brilliantly, forging connections that might otherwise escape the purview of the average observer.
You can find out more about Josie Cotton online on her official website.
Watch the video for ‘Ukrainian Cowboy’:
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