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Devendra Banhart, Rejoicing in the Hands
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Junkmedia Magazine | by Rob YoungBanhart is able to tune out the din of our worldDevendra Banhart's bio reads like a bohemian fairy tale. He was named by an Indian mystic whom his parents followed. Born in Texas, and raised in Venezuela and Los Angeles, he received a scholarship to the Art Institute of San Francisco when he was 17. In 2000, he dropped out of school and moved to Paris, where he was discovered by a club owner who employed him to open up for indie rock bands that came through town. Later, back in Los Angeles, a friend of Michael Gira's (of New York's Swans) heard Banhart doing a soundcheck and asked for a CD-R, which led to a deal with Gira's Young Gods Records. Banhart's first record, Oh Me, Oh My… was a glimpse into a different world, one filled with odd musical refrains and lots and lots of tape hiss. Still, the album made ripples. Major national glossies like Spin and Blender even devoted a few column inches to his second album, Rejoicing in the Hands. And for good reason. Banhart delivers his twisted tales in a warbling, sometimes-falsetto. His melodies recall isolation, introspection and loneliness,......
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Devendra Banhart | Rejoicing in the Hands
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Synergy Magazine | by Antero GarciaEulogy of Existence: A Brief and Fleeting Triptych 5 star review1: "This is the soup that I believe in / This is the smoke I'm always breathing." I am a homeless vessel. My feet traverse the sea of Los Angeles unsteadily. I sleep in the doorways of the offices you embody and I dream in the cracks of grime that un-ambitiously fog my mind. This is not idealized romance but there is a solace in the nether regions you avoid. You kick change in my hand and slap stereotypes to my sun-scorched cheeks; you need me as an excuse for your level of normality. I notice my skin sagging, my eyelids drooping, and I feel alive knowing my body decays. … I mutter incantations Banhart has whispered to me in his folk song delivery and curiously plucked guitar. "Love, it would be much better, Love it would be much better." I mutter it until I believe it.   2: "Now let's have another glass of wine… this is the water in which we wade…" I used to dream of stability, but now I find it between the guitar strums and the quivering voice that......
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Devendra Banhart, Rejoicing In The Hands
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SF Burning | by Alexander LaurenceA total originalWhen I first heard some recordings by Devendra Banhart over a year ago, I didn't realize that I would be listening to a musical revolution. His first album was raw and earnest. It was a home recording. It was a diamond in the rough. Now we have the first real album. "Rejoicing In The Hands" is the great Devendra Banhart album that we have been waiting for. After a year of non-stop touring and writing, Devendra had over fifty songs to cherry pick for this album. He went in the studio with Michael Gira and recorded a classic album. The sound is so rich and deep. It is amazing. Songs that just sound like sketches on the first album, sound like great anthems on the new record. Devendra has utilized a group of musicians that stay true to his vision. There are more strings on certain songs. Devendra's hero, Vashti Bunyan, even shows up on one song here. This is an amazing record all the way through. This is a man to see live and buy all his records. When many musical fads will have faded, I will still be listening to Devendra......
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Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
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Fakejazz | by Nick Hennies Suave and seductive qualityWhat to say about an album so widely acclaimed by critics across the globe? Each one of them will tell you that Devendra Banhart's new album is more mature and confident, and that Banhart's foray into the recording studio benefits his newfound confidence rather than taking away from the mystique found on his "lo-fi" debut. They will tell you that the guest musicians enhance Banhart's songs in a way that never would have been possible if he had continued documenting them on tape recorders and answering machines. Finally, they've said that Rejoicing in the Hands is an incredibly accomplished and appealing album, having stripped much of the surreal weirdness of his earlier work in favor of more inviting-yet-cryptic lyrics. While all of these things are true, is there nothing more to say about what is easily one of the best albums to have been released in months? What is it that allows for such a seemingly odd musician to connect with so many people? The main characteristic that sets Rejoicing in the Hands apart from Banhart's previous recordings is its charisma. Yes, he is more self-assured with his quivering voice and increasingly......
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Rejoicing in the Hands
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Washington City Paper | by Shauna MillerBanhart’s distinctive timbre to emerge as the central instrumentDevendra Banhart’s debut, 2002’s Oh Me Oh My..., introduced the singer as a precious, off-center warbler with a gift for haunting, Brothers Grimm–esque lyrics and a crush on Marc Bolan the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Swans’ Michael Gira scooped the then-21-year-old foundling, fed and clothed him, and released an unretouched, often distractingly lo-fi collection of his songs to glowing reviews, most of which made much of the fact that Banhart was born to a family of traveling hippie mystics from Texas. Rejoicing in the Hands, Banhart’s second full-length, offers the scruffy nü-Donovan a chance to put a cleaner face forward. This time around, there is actual production, courtesy of Gira, with Banhart’s tinny voice augmented by strings, slide guitar, and even the occasional soul singer. These additions are applied with restraint, though, and don’t turn out to be as devastating as you might think. “This Beard Is for Siobhán,†for example, manages to work a slow build of bass, drums, piano, and kazoo into the folk equivalent of an Idiot-era Iggy rocker. Whereas Oh Me Oh My... used unrelenting tape hiss practically as orchestration, Rejoicing......