PRESS
-
Devendra Banhart
()
New-Noise.com | by Joanna BoothThere's something hypnotic about his musicIf music is the slightest bit spiritual then Devendra Banhart is the god of small things. His whimsical, oddball folk – detailed, delicate, almost fragile in its simplicity – circles around the everyday. However, Banhart knows how to make the littlest things count. He's packed a lot into his 23 years. Born in Texas, named by an Indian mystic his parents followed, he lived in Caracas from the age of three, then LA, and dropped out of the San Francisco Art Institute to go to Paris where he recorded the songs released as his first album on a borrowed four-track. These tracks reached the ears of Michael Gira, one-time frontman of Swans and owner of Young God Records, who released the crackling, eccentric, acoustic narratives as they were. Unequivocal critical acclaim followed, and though perhaps there is too great a curve on Banhart's ball for mainstream popularity, he has a growing cult following. The crowd at his sold-out gig at the London ICA last week were certainly bewitched. He looks very much the wandering hippy minstrel; hair like a fraggle, all angles and bones. The horde was silent as he sat,......
-
Devendra Banhart | REJOICING IN THE HANDS
()
Boston Phoenix | by TED DROZDOWSKIMYSTIC RIVERS: Devendra Banhart's gift for melody and his light, spacious, guitar playing make even his darkest meditations easy to take.Like some Transcendentalist cross between English folksinger Donovan and Delta bluesman Tommy Johnson, this young neo-hippie singer-songwriter plies his sweet, high, vibrato-dipped vocal cords in the service of mini-mysteries that ricochet between such notions as God-like omniscience and the playful deconstruction of the human form. Sure, his yarns are hard to follow and likely to plunge off into some mystical wonderland at every turn, but Banhart’s gift for melody in both his singing and his light, spacious, mostly acoustic-guitar playing make it easy to keep listening to even his darkest meditations. Fans of Syd Barrett may find their way into these musical mythscapes more easily than traditional folk and blues buffs — after all, Banhart’s non-sequiturs and puns and titles like "Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artesan Mimicry" would sound comfortable coming from the Pink Floyd co-founder’s mouth. And when Banhart worries his guitar notes and spins a playful tune over a drone in "Tit Smoking" (an instrumental, by the way), some parallels between his playing and Barrett’s are obvious. What’s also obvious is......
-
Rejoicing in the Hands
()
Nashville Scene | by Dave MaddoxVisionary psychedeliaTwo years ago, Devendra Banhart emerged as an underground phenomenon, receiving critical attention for his homemade recording Oh Me Oh My. Rather than clinging to his outsider status, his new album, Rejoicing in the Hands, finds him moving more toward becoming an established artist. The tape wobble, hissing, mic bumps and background noises of his no-budget recording have been replaced by a clearer sound. Repetitive figures that bordered on ranting have given way to more developed melody lines. Whereas the first recording used only Banhart's guitar and voice, the new one features other musicians (although Banhart's playing remains a focal point). On Oh Me Oh My, his voice had a harsh quality that bordered on screaming. That edge is off now. Rejoicing in the Hands exudes a hopeful view of life in which people enjoy unity with the world through their concrete relationships with friends and lovers, all of it vitiated by beneficent spiritual forces. In the opening track, "This Is the Way" (the title sounds distressingly like something for sale at LifeWay Christian Stores), Banhart sings, "This is the sound that swims inside me / That circle sound is what surrounds me. Well,......
-
Surreal Folk Blues
()
Baltimore City Paper | by Bret McCabeA Troika of Performers Bleed a New Breed of Psychedelic FolkSixteen seconds into “Todo los Dolores†Devendra Banhart loses his cool and starts laughing like he just got the punch line to a joke he heard three days earlier. He stops singing the airy Spanish ballad, the finger-picked arpeggio accompaniment ceases, and he cracks up. In the background a few other cackles come over the recording. And after some composing rustle, Banhart starts back up and lets his trembling voice transform the giggle festival into a reverie. It’s a wonderfully lighthearted moment on the 23-year-old singer/songwriter’s latest offering of psychedelic folk, Rejoicing in the Hands, and also a candid snapshot of a crop circle of young artists taking cues from 1960s and ’70s British folk but mirthfully reinventing it on their own terms. For this outpost, the guitars are acoustic, the tempos are moderate to slow, the orchestrations are sparse, and the lyrics are most definitely enigmatic. But intertwined in those dressings are truly bizarre lyrical worlds, blues-based backgrounds have pretty much been traded in for circular raga structures or other non-Western forms, the instrumentation is eclectic, and everything is delivered with a precocious......
-
REJOICING IN THE HANDS
()
BBC | by Matt Walton Vinyl review (XL)The simplest things are often the most beautiful. Take the first LP from 23-year-old wandering minstrel Devendra Banhart, for example. A man with a cracked, haunting voice, hunched over what you suspect to be a battered guitar, singing folky, blues-stained melodies. Recorded by Lynn Bridges (who worked with Bob Dylan), Rejoicing In The Hands features only a limited number of other musical noises and vintage production, and that makes it all the more powerful. Occasionally whimsical, intermittently heartbroken, sometimes even daft, it’s always honest, sincere and devoid of pretence. Joyous....