PRESS
Devendra Banhard , Oh Me Oh My ...
The Big Takeover | by Greg Weeks
Falsettos swirl in vortex harmony with conjured realms of mad-logical word permutations
The world needs more musical kooks. Much of the off-kilter personality that fueled music through the 60s and 70s has been lost, supplanted by a corporate tunnel vision of dictated taste and presentation. Our radios and televisions are engulfed by meatheads and pretty boys, intelligent or otherwise, who have little in the way of charisma or sex appeal. Devendra Banhard lacks neither traits, thankfully, and in fact cuts the figure of a young Cat Stevens wed to the wide-skull wizardry of early Marc Bolan.Devendra1s music is further out than most humans living in the 001s is prepared to believe. Years of drone, psychedelia and re-issued troubadours the likes of Hurley, Barrett, Buckley or what have you, can not instill the expectations to which this madcap laugher is set to deliver upon. Appropriately recorded to a couple of fucked-up 4-tracks, the gazillion tunes Banhard has shot forth on this debut LP shatter all preconceptions of what minimalist folk-duggery can achieve through guitar and layered vocals. Falsettos swirl in vortex harmony with conjured realms of mad-logical word permutations. Hothouse passages warble and warp through folds of time and emerge unscathed yet remotely identifiable, and undeniably brilliant, shining on the mid-day sun. This is music to skip down paths to; to fire ones’ imagination with, and to drop out and roll things right by. Steel yourself for Devendra’s true-gospel lunacy, and prepare to see the world in a host of undiscovered colors.