PRESS
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Aural Pleasure with Dave Maher
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Chicago Maroon | by Dave MaherI am glad to have found himSo much of the best art seems born from pain. History testifies to this with stories of tortured artists: Van Gogh cutting off his own ear, Kerouac drinking himself into oblivion, and too many suicides to count. Rock music has Kurt Cobain and, recently, Elliott Smith. Even the Beach Boys, the musically sunniest group I can think of, have lyrics full of anxiety and frustration (see songs like “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Timesâ€). When The Beatles sang, “It’s getting better all the time,†they had to earn it with songs like “Eleanor Rigby†and “Help!†Critics, especially, will accept light only at the end of a very dark tunnel, and even then, the artist better hurry up and find another tunnel to suffer in. Cursive frontman Tim Kasher touches on the self-perpetuating aspects of this artistic pain when, in “Art is Hard,†he sings, “You gotta sink to swim.†This is to say no one wants a happy artist, because then he might start singing sappy songs about how much he loves his kids. It’s frustrating to me, this obsession with the dark, because, well, don’t most......
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Rejoicing in the Hands
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Erasingclouds.com | by Dave HeatonRaw talent producing music that will completely absorb youDevendra Banhart's debut album Oh Me Oh My... was a madcap romp through the young Texan musician's psyche - his unusual voice crooned and twisted its way through a surreal midnight blend of rock, folk and blues. His second album takes that all-over-the-place sound and streamlines it, coming up with a sound that's more in touch with the most stripped-down acoustic blues and folk records yet still retains Banhart's unique musical personality and perspective on the world. Though in its own way it's just as strange as the first album, Rejoicing... feels at times more like a love letter to humanity and the power of music than a snapshot of an acid trip. It's a tone the album takes on in part because of the stirring first song, "This Is the Way," a voice-and-guitar number that feels like a manifesto of artistic simplicity and ends with the words "We've known we have a choice/we chose rejoice." And as weird and dark and mysterious as the album is, there's a continuing theme of celebration, of praising the joy of corporeal things or the wonders of the imagination. Banhart has......
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NEW RELEASE NEWSLETTER from INSOUND
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INSOUNDDEVENDRA BANHART 'Rejoicing in the Hands' (Young God)'Rejoicing In The Hands' is the first of two Devendra Banhart albums to be released this year on Young God Records. (The second album, 'Nino Rojo,' will be released in late September '04.) Devendra recorded these 32 songs in a living room, using the best possible vintage gear, in a house on the Alabama/Georgia border. With only a few mics capturing the scene, you get Banhart's stripped-down, beautiful warble (along with the occasional chorus of cicadas, when he recorded at night, with the windows open), some amazing finger-picking, and his uncanny ability to transport us, through story/words, just using his acoustic guitar and voice. As Todd Barry of Jaded Times says, 'Not to be outdone by his vocals, his guitar work rivals it in character and timelessness. With rhythms that seem as equally rooted in the works of Django Reinhardt as Simon and Garfunkel, Banhart successfully achieves a beautiful and powerful sound, with emotion, playfulness, and thematic prowess that will leave aspiring songwriters jealous and drooling. A beautiful, raw, and emotive release.'...
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Rejoicing in the Hands
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SF Bay Guardian | by Jimmy DraperThe embodiment of authentic expressionFrom NPR to Playboy, so much hype surrounds the second coming of Devendra Banhart that he's practically cramping Jesus Christ's style. And it's a fitting response: not only can the neo-folkie bear a striking resemblance to J.C., but he's been touted as some sort of musical messiah since the release of 2002's homespun Oh Me Oh My ... After that no-fi debut – more field recording than proper album, really – Banhart found himself praised as nothing less than the embodiment of authentic expression, fingerpicking old-timey, acoustic songs rooted in blues, British folk, and even gospel hymns. However, it's his voice – a marvelously emotive, billy goat tremble that's equal parts M. Ward and M. Bolan – that ultimately inspired much of the near-religious fanaticism in his listeners. Now, with his second arresting album in a row, Banhart looks to expand his following. Rejoicing in the Hands ... finds the 22-year-old upping the production and fleshing out his previous song fragments for 16 tracks that are downright radio-ready compared to its predecessor's answering machine recordings. Still, the focus remains Banhart warbling his way through weird, alluring voodoo verses about beards,......
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Perfect Partners
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The Guardian | John Fordham...David Coulter made his musical saw tingle the spine...Movie scores are usually supposed to complement the action, but the late Nino Rota's could take on the role of an extra character. That was the quality in Rota that producer Hal Willner pursued when he asked a group of American jazz musicians - including then unknowns Bill Frisell and the Marsalis brothers - to reappraise the composer's work for the Amarcord Nino Rota album in 1980. Willner put the show back on the road with an old and new cast for the Barbican's Only Connect series on Saturday. Prominent among the original contributors was Carla Bley, one of the great jazz composers of the past 40 years, who was back as a driving force in the remake. It was her mix of carefree swing, fairground themes, disruptive time-signature changes and spaces for raw improv that was the finale and the high point of a first half devoted to Rota's early works for Federico Fellini. That sequence had also seen pianist Geri Allen shift imperiously between tango and swing on Amarcord; a big band, directed by Michael Gibbs, unleash a blazing sunrise of sound (with Gary Valente, a......