PRESS
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Devendra Banhart
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Hercalitussayz.com"there must be all that dark for all that light, there must be balance, which is why I believe in real demons"Devendra Banhart was once a homeless psyched-out hippie hipster eccentric with nothing much to show for except a piece of paper from some obscure San Francisco art school. Life was grim in these young years as he’ll attest. Then he discovered a 4-track and it would change his life forever. And it wasn’t even his 4-track he was using, belonging rather to a friend of his onto which he would record his first crude psychedelic folk songs in his ramshackle basement. But before long Banhart was able to channel this momentum and move to New York City, hopping from guest couch to guest couch, freeing him to pursue his hipster dreams more earnestly. Roughly two short years ago Banhart’s 4-track demos finally made their way to Michael Gira of Young God Recordings, who instantly fell in love with the bohemian rocker’s unique Southern-infused quivering voice and backwoods songwriting style. Banhart was on his way. With Gira’s help Banhart is still a psyched-out hippie hipster eccentric, but now has a permanent place to call home, not to mention several impressive......
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Devendra Banhart
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Hercalitussayz.com"there must be all that dark for all that light, there must be balance, which is why I believe in real demons"Devendra Banhart was once a homeless psyched-out hippie hipster eccentric with nothing much to show for except a piece of paper from some obscure San Francisco art school. Life was grim in these young years as he’ll attest. Then he discovered a 4-track and it would change his life forever. And it wasn’t even his 4-track he was using, belonging rather to a friend of his onto which he would record his first crude psychedelic folk songs in his ramshackle basement. But before long Banhart was able to channel this momentum and move to New York City, hopping from guest couch to guest couch, freeing him to pursue his hipster dreams more earnestly. Roughly two short years ago Banhart’s 4-track demos finally made their way to Michael Gira of Young God Recordings, who instantly fell in love with the bohemian rocker’s unique Southern-infused quivering voice and backwoods songwriting style. Banhart was on his way. With Gira’s help Banhart is still a psyched-out hippie hipster eccentric, but now has a permanent place to call home, not to mention several impressive......
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Devendra Banhart, Niño Rojo
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Copper Press | by by Christian Carey...he presents a new wrinkle to his persona and, more importantly, in his songsThe press may be all abuzz about Devendra Banhart right now, variously depicting him as a cuckoo musical outsider or overly active alt-folkie - neither of which falls close to a fair assessment of his considerably attractive, if quirky, musical talents. Still, despite the ham-handedness of it all, the buzz is accurate in this respect - there is something very exciting about Nino Rojo, Banhart's latest full length. Much of the album focuses on Banhart in intimate settings; he doesn't need much more than an acoustic guitar and his own quavering but fluid singing to fill ballads like "Wake Up, Little Sparrow" and "We All Know" with passion and poignancy aplenty. These reduced means are still diverting; the guitar work on the record is particularly varied and interesting. Cascading arpeggios echo across the soundscape of "Little Yellow Spider," an economical, loping groove frames "A Ribbon," while layered guitar melodies are complemented by a corresponding (and quite lovely) layer of vocal parts on "At the Hop." "Be Kind" is a psych-folk sing along, propelled by minimal percussion and an Eastern-contoured melodic framework.......
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Banhart, Swans redo meaning of ‘folk’
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The Phoenix by JOSEPH KILLEDevendra Banhart, Niño RojoWhat is folk music? Perhaps the first thing that wanders into your mind is the image of your parents and a bunch of their friends 30 or 40 years ago sitting around a campfire singing “We Shall Overcome†to nobody in particular. Then your mind wanders to NPR and the faux Irish/Scottish/Whatever ballads that the hipper dentists let blast in their waiting rooms. And don’t get me started on Pete Seeger. The term “modern folk†has come to be a blanket term for crappy music played by people with acoustic guitars and a pair of Birkenstocks. And worst of all, it’s not a derivative of the original recorded examples of folk music we have from the 1930s, or even an adaptation of music notated before recording equipment, but instead a trickle-down from the first major mass reinterpretation of American music, the folk revival of the 1960s. Of course there’s good folk music as well. But it’s rarer than a steel penny, and any artist with an ounce of integrity is hesitant to call it “folk†because of the stigma that comes with the term — precisely the reason I was surprised to receive......
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Devendra Banhart, Niño Rojo
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Copper Press | by by Christian Carey...he presents a new wrinkle to his persona and, more importantly, in his songsThe press may be all abuzz about Devendra Banhart right now, variously depicting him as a cuckoo musical outsider or overly active alt-folkie - neither of which falls close to a fair assessment of his considerably attractive, if quirky, musical talents. Still, despite the ham-handedness of it all, the buzz is accurate in this respect - there is something very exciting about Nino Rojo, Banhart's latest full length. Much of the album focuses on Banhart in intimate settings; he doesn't need much more than an acoustic guitar and his own quavering but fluid singing to fill ballads like "Wake Up, Little Sparrow" and "We All Know" with passion and poignancy aplenty. These reduced means are still diverting; the guitar work on the record is particularly varied and interesting. Cascading arpeggios echo across the soundscape of "Little Yellow Spider," an economical, loping groove frames "A Ribbon," while layered guitar melodies are complemented by a corresponding (and quite lovely) layer of vocal parts on "At the Hop." "Be Kind" is a psych-folk sing along, propelled by minimal percussion and an Eastern-contoured melodic framework.......