PRESS
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DEVENDRA BANHART | NINO ROJO
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Crud Magazine | by James BerryIt’s satisfying. It makes you smile.Whimsy – it’s a funny old quality. A valuable social feature perhaps, but a funny one nonetheless. A personality undoubtedly benefits from it – it’s like an accessory, tarting up what’s already there, even to the extent that one can be defined by how they accessorise – but to be swathed in it, or buried beneath it? For other things to be left to merely accessorise it? Do you see what I’m trying to say with this at all? The bloke down the pub with a quirky self-appointed nickname, growing a handlebar moustache, drinking cider from a tankard and talking in animated and unconnected syllables as if he’s just discovered electricity. He’s drowning himself and his sorrows in whimsy. The thing is many who are similar in style to Devendra that dabble in the stuff – Badly Drawn Boy, Chris TT, Simple Kid – but they counter that with melancholy or a narrated reality or facial hair and headwear. Devendra doesn’t appear to know there’s shade to every light, which seems at odds with his clearly eloquent capabilities as a musician and writer. Don’t get us wrong, as he high......
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Devendra Banhart, Niño Rojo
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Dusted Magazine | by Nathan HoganBanhart drapes his creations in new instrumental colorSince the release of Oh Me Oh My, his lively 4-track debut, Devendra Banhart has risen to prominence as the charismatic leader of a new generation of barely-underground out-folkies. The wide-eyed and generous qualities so appealing in Banhart’s music have also manifested themselves in his attention to peers – he regularly hurries through his sets to accommodate musicians he seems genuinely awed by (Michael Gira, Joanna Newsom, Xiu Xiu, and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic to name a few). Earlier this year Banhart wielded his influence to shine attention on a slew of talented but mostly lesser-known contemporaries with his Golden Apples Of The Sun compilation. On Niño Rojo, his third full-length, Banhart puts his inclusive disposition to solo advantage; with a liberal helping of instrumental and vocal support, Banhart’s songs find life at their edges. The material on Niño Rojo represents a portion of the recordings completed for Rejoicing In The Hands. (Banhart’s brimming debut was hardly a fluke, and the 30-odd songs recorded last year for Lynn Bridges put Young God in the enviable position of needing two releases to get everything out.) Therefore, it’s chronologically inaccurate to......
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Devendra Banhart, Niño Rojo
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Dusted Magazine | by Nathan HoganBanhart drapes his creations in new instrumental colorSince the release of Oh Me Oh My, his lively 4-track debut, Devendra Banhart has risen to prominence as the charismatic leader of a new generation of barely-underground out-folkies. The wide-eyed and generous qualities so appealing in Banhart’s music have also manifested themselves in his attention to peers – he regularly hurries through his sets to accommodate musicians he seems genuinely awed by (Michael Gira, Joanna Newsom, Xiu Xiu, and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic to name a few). Earlier this year Banhart wielded his influence to shine attention on a slew of talented but mostly lesser-known contemporaries with his Golden Apples Of The Sun compilation. On Niño Rojo, his third full-length, Banhart puts his inclusive disposition to solo advantage; with a liberal helping of instrumental and vocal support, Banhart’s songs find life at their edges. The material on Niño Rojo represents a portion of the recordings completed for Rejoicing In The Hands. (Banhart’s brimming debut was hardly a fluke, and the 30-odd songs recorded last year for Lynn Bridges put Young God in the enviable position of needing two releases to get everything out.) Therefore, it’s chronologically inaccurate to......
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Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo
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LMNOPA fantastic trip into the mind of one of the greatest unknown songwriters in the United StatesDevendra Banhart has, in a very short time, captured the hearts and imaginations of music reviewers everywhere. His music is obtuse and unfamiliar sounding...having a great deal in common with Marc Bolan's early Tyrannosaurus Rex recordings. The tunes are simple, featuring wonderfully flowing melodies...and Banhart's unmistakable quivering vocals. In many ways, this man's songs sound as if they could have been written in the 1920s or 1930s. There is some undescribable quality that makes his music sound very out of place in today's musical climate. Nino Rojo was culled from the same recording sessions that produced Banhart's previous CD (Rejoicing in the Hands). As such, it is just as equally rewarding and hypnotic. Featuring sixteen obtuse cuts, Rojo is a fantastic trip into the mind of one of the greatest unknown songwriters in the United States. Excellent cuts include "Ay Mama," "We All Know," "An Island," "Owl Eyes," and "Electric Heart." A word of warning: Most folks will probably not appreciate this music. Because people in general want music that sounds familiar, this greatly limits Banhart's potential audience. If, however, you have an adventurous......
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Devendra Banhart | Nino Rojo
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Rockfeedback...is a continuation of the lustrous, romantic minimalism that coated his peculiar, yet beautiful, firstExquisite, distinctive beard fetishist Devendra Banhart returns with a second album in under four months. Recorded during the same sessions of his fast-gaining-notoriety UK debut, ‘Rejoicing In The Hands Of…’, ‘Nino Rojo’ is a continuation of the lustrous, romantic minimalism that coated his peculiar, yet beautiful, first. How can it fail. Banhart is rockfeedback’s self-styled ‘Man of 2004’ – whether lollingly covering Ella Jenkins’ ‘Wake Up, Little Sparrow’, singing about monkeys on the sublime ‘Little Yellow Spider’ or verbally squawking along to such brass patterns as featured in the closing embers of ‘We All Know’, it’s fascinating how diverse a collage of sentiments and emotions the simplicity of a tattered, personally-illustrated lyric-book, beguiling and quivering vocal and acoustic guitar can convey. Banhart is an open sort of fellow, too. He doesn’t mind us peering in. ‘I want to sleep with, with, with… you,’ he bluntly exhales on ‘A Ribbon’; ‘I ain’t never coming back,’ he drops during ‘At The Hop’; ‘My cheques are also useless,’ he even suggests amidst a sumptuous Buckley-aping-Waits ‘My Ships’. But that’s his most precious commodity – to attract, create fiction, unravel......