PRESS
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Devendra Banhart: Nino Rojo
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The Yale Herald | by Rachel KhongDevendra at his story-telling bestMaybe it's just me, but something about 23-year-old psych-folk artist Devendra Banhart just screams "campfires," especially the part about friends telling life stories in sleeping bags. With Banhart, the stories are frequently breathtaking—tales backdropped by acoustic guitars, sung by a voice that sounds like a cross between a pirate and some gung-ho gospel singer. The influences are hard to pinpoint. Marc Bolan? Captain Beefheart? His newest album, Niño Rojo, which comes after Rejoicing in the Hands from earlier this year, opens with "Wake Up, Little Sparrow," giving nods to Ella Jenkins. Resonating closely with Rejoicing in the Hands while stepping it up a notch, Banhart's fourth effort surprises in the best of ways. Niño Rojo is, at times, a charismatic Kumbaya; at others, it's a sustained lullabye straddling the whimsical and the poignant. Mostly, though, it's Devendra at his story-telling best, singing about happy squids "moving psychedelically"—the nonsensical stuff of acid-tripped fairy tales, maybe, but gorgeous, and oddly meaningful still. When Banhart sings about coming across a dancing crab in "Little Yellow Spider," he asks the crab to "dance for him just one more time/Before you hibernate and you come......
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Devendra Banhart: Nino Rojo
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The Yale Herald | by Rachel KhongDevendra at his story-telling bestMaybe it's just me, but something about 23-year-old psych-folk artist Devendra Banhart just screams "campfires," especially the part about friends telling life stories in sleeping bags. With Banhart, the stories are frequently breathtaking—tales backdropped by acoustic guitars, sung by a voice that sounds like a cross between a pirate and some gung-ho gospel singer. The influences are hard to pinpoint. Marc Bolan? Captain Beefheart? His newest album, Niño Rojo, which comes after Rejoicing in the Hands from earlier this year, opens with "Wake Up, Little Sparrow," giving nods to Ella Jenkins. Resonating closely with Rejoicing in the Hands while stepping it up a notch, Banhart's fourth effort surprises in the best of ways. Niño Rojo is, at times, a charismatic Kumbaya; at others, it's a sustained lullabye straddling the whimsical and the poignant. Mostly, though, it's Devendra at his story-telling best, singing about happy squids "moving psychedelically"—the nonsensical stuff of acid-tripped fairy tales, maybe, but gorgeous, and oddly meaningful still. When Banhart sings about coming across a dancing crab in "Little Yellow Spider," he asks the crab to "dance for him just one more time/Before you hibernate and you come......
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DEVENDRA BANHART: Nino Rojo
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CMJ Music Monthly | by Joe Martin...the man continues to experimentEarlier this year, Devendra Banhart took the idiosyncratic, lo-fi intimacy of his first recordings and made them swell on the excellent, earthily ornate Rejoicing In The Hands. Niño Rojo, the singer/ songwriter's second batch of songs for 2004 and third full-length in all, forces listeners down an even steeper rabbit hole, taking more chances and, suitably, failing more often. He treads precariously close to audience alienation: Casual listeners might be shocked to learn of the singer's not-so-secret hippie leanings when—amid chants of "Oh! All the little animals!"—he sings of a "happy squid" that "moves so psychedelically" ("Little Yellow Spider"). Luckily, the missteps are almost always offset by Banhart's ever-charming croon and willingness to toy with his sound. "Be Kind" romps like nothing the singer's done before, bolstered by a shambling doo-wop backbeat and electric guitar riffage. Likewise, "Ay Mama" inverts Rejoicing's "Todo Los Dolores," employing sickly horns and smoothing each Spanish syllable into a flurry of meditative incoherence. Guest turns by Michael Gira ("Electric Heart") and Vetiver's Andy Cabic (the bittersweet "At The Hop") buoy the album's playful spirit, but Niño Rojo's real joy comes in discovering that rather than......
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DEVENDRA BANHART: Nino Rojo
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CMJ Music Monthly | by Joe Martin...the man continues to experimentEarlier this year, Devendra Banhart took the idiosyncratic, lo-fi intimacy of his first recordings and made them swell on the excellent, earthily ornate Rejoicing In The Hands. Niño Rojo, the singer/ songwriter's second batch of songs for 2004 and third full-length in all, forces listeners down an even steeper rabbit hole, taking more chances and, suitably, failing more often. He treads precariously close to audience alienation: Casual listeners might be shocked to learn of the singer's not-so-secret hippie leanings when—amid chants of "Oh! All the little animals!"—he sings of a "happy squid" that "moves so psychedelically" ("Little Yellow Spider"). Luckily, the missteps are almost always offset by Banhart's ever-charming croon and willingness to toy with his sound. "Be Kind" romps like nothing the singer's done before, bolstered by a shambling doo-wop backbeat and electric guitar riffage. Likewise, "Ay Mama" inverts Rejoicing's "Todo Los Dolores," employing sickly horns and smoothing each Spanish syllable into a flurry of meditative incoherence. Guest turns by Michael Gira ("Electric Heart") and Vetiver's Andy Cabic (the bittersweet "At The Hop") buoy the album's playful spirit, but Niño Rojo's real joy comes in discovering that rather than......
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DEVENDRA BANHART: Nino Rojo
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CMJ Music Monthly | by Joe Martin...the man continues to experimentEarlier this year, Devendra Banhart took the idiosyncratic, lo-fi intimacy of his first recordings and made them swell on the excellent, earthily ornate Rejoicing In The Hands. Niño Rojo, the singer/ songwriter's second batch of songs for 2004 and third full-length in all, forces listeners down an even steeper rabbit hole, taking more chances and, suitably, failing more often. He treads precariously close to audience alienation: Casual listeners might be shocked to learn of the singer's not-so-secret hippie leanings when—amid chants of "Oh! All the little animals!"—he sings of a "happy squid" that "moves so psychedelically" ("Little Yellow Spider"). Luckily, the missteps are almost always offset by Banhart's ever-charming croon and willingness to toy with his sound. "Be Kind" romps like nothing the singer's done before, bolstered by a shambling doo-wop backbeat and electric guitar riffage. Likewise, "Ay Mama" inverts Rejoicing's "Todo Los Dolores," employing sickly horns and smoothing each Spanish syllable into a flurry of meditative incoherence. Guest turns by Michael Gira ("Electric Heart") and Vetiver's Andy Cabic (the bittersweet "At The Hop") buoy the album's playful spirit, but Niño Rojo's real joy comes in discovering that rather than......