PRESS
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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......
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Pop Avant's Encore
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The Eyeopener | by Alison NorthcottDevendra Banhart headlines second show of the Music Gallery's new seriesMuch like its location, tucked behind a busy strip of Queen Street West, up the street from the City TV building, the Music Gallery's programming is under the mainstream radar. Located in the 160-year-old St. George-the-Martyr Anglican Church, the Music Gallery has been showcasing new music, primarily of the contemporary classical repertoire, since 1976. It's not a typical venue for indie-rock shows but Jonathan Bunce, the Music Gallery's public relations coordinator, wants to change that. Bunce, also known as Jonny Dovercourt, is a co-founder and the current booker for Wavelength, a weekly concert series at Sneaky Dee's. Since it's inception in 1997, this series has evolved and now includes a monthly _zine and a loyal community of musicians, fans, and followers. This is the community 31-year-old Bunce is hoping to bring to the Music Gallery through his new series, Pop Avant. Pop Avant, which debuted this fall, is a series of five shows per year, each one showcasing different slate musicians whose music you won't hear on mainstream radio. "There are musicians in the indie-rock/pop music world who are doing things that are innovative, groundbreaking......
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How singer and songwriter Devendra Banhart makes music to get weird to
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Kalamazoo GazetteShow preview + InterviewDevendra Banhart is a doozy. Even the multitalented singer-songwriter's publicist mumbles something about "dealing with these hippies" and a cell phone battery "literally melting down" as he reschedules a phone interview for the second time. Then, when you finally get Banhart on the phone, he's on the road in the tour van with his friend's band, Vetiver, with whom he's playing as a guest acoustic guitarist. Flamenco blares in the background -- and he tries to interview you, saying what you're doing as a cub reporter is more interesting than his little life playing his little songs for people, which he'll do Saturday night at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids. As bloody if. "Where did you grow up?" he asks. "Why do you write about words? What do words mean to you and why?" he blurts in a stream-of-consciousness staccato. The new battery on his cell phone cuts out as he seems to say something about a leprechaun. You play the "Can you hear me now?" game until he's ungarbled. "It's just that my phone is very unbatteryish," he says. "I charged it. No big deal at all." He gushes for a......