PRESS
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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, Rejoicing in the Hands
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Kitty Magik | by Amy PhillipsIt's all about that voice, and the sheer beauty of Banhart's melodies and arrangements Being a hippie is cool again. Didn't you get the memo? It's OK to have long hair and wear dashikis-all the punks aren't going to laugh at you anymore. In fact, they're going to think you're pretty cool. Take Devendra Banhart. He's a twenty-three-year-old singer/songwriter worshipped by hipsters, despite the fact that he looks like Charles Manson raised on a free-love commune. He also sings in an unstable cackle/warble and plucks an acoustic guitar like he's sitting next to a campfire. So why is Devendra Banhart cool? Well, this whole new folk revival thing might have something to do with current events, which would make anybody yearn for a little peace and love. But for me, a hater of most things Nick Drake-like, it's all about that voice, and the sheer beauty of Banhart's melodies and arrangements. Rejoicing, his second record for Swans main man Michael Gira's Young God records, sounds like a transmission from some sort of utopia, where animals and people live as one, everybody's happy, and Vashti Bunyan is the reigning goddess/queen (the '60s folk earth mama duets......
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Devendra Banhart, Nino Rojo
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Kitty Magik | by Bart SchanemanThe line between reality and fantasy is constantly blurredA unique voice can carry a lot of weight, distinguish an artist, make him instantly recognizable. Folkie Devendra Banhart's voice is like nothing I've heard before. Sometimes it sounds old, but he's in his twenties. Other times it sounds like a woman, but he's a man. Sometimes he even sounds pretty traditional-it all depends on the tone of the song, and the tones of his songs shift as dramatically as his voice. The songs on Nino Rojo have been polished, but they're still stark, acoustic, and carry the association of Nick Drake, in the southern Florida swamp standing on a rotting corpse, picking the same old guitar until his teeth fall out. See, the thing about Devendra is that the line between reality and fantasy is constantly blurred, making the meaning of his crazy lyrics slippery. Almost as slippery as attempting to describe what his voice sounds like....
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Devendra Banhart, Nino Rojo
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Kitty Magik | by Bart SchanemanThe line between reality and fantasy is constantly blurredA unique voice can carry a lot of weight, distinguish an artist, make him instantly recognizable. Folkie Devendra Banhart's voice is like nothing I've heard before. Sometimes it sounds old, but he's in his twenties. Other times it sounds like a woman, but he's a man. Sometimes he even sounds pretty traditional-it all depends on the tone of the song, and the tones of his songs shift as dramatically as his voice. The songs on Nino Rojo have been polished, but they're still stark, acoustic, and carry the association of Nick Drake, in the southern Florida swamp standing on a rotting corpse, picking the same old guitar until his teeth fall out. See, the thing about Devendra is that the line between reality and fantasy is constantly blurred, making the meaning of his crazy lyrics slippery. Almost as slippery as attempting to describe what his voice sounds like....