PRESS
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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......
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Rejoicing in the Hands
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www.othermusic.com | by MKOne of the best records you could hope to hear all yearDevendra Banhart's new album is as majestic as his first. Better even. Simply put, it is one of the best records you could hope to hear all year. The remarkable thing is that trumping an acclaimed debut is not such an easy thing to do in this day and age, with new release Tuesdays continually feeling like a big letdown and highly anticipated record after record failing to live up to the hype. Rejoicing in the Hands does, it is surely an album of great depth. Many of the rough edges he'd previously exhibited have been smoothed out; not one song here is presented simply as a sketch. A proper studio serves his voice and arrangements well -- I'd previously worried that the multi-tracked vocals on Oh Me Oh My… could possibly be a crutch that masked a set of weak pipes. On the contrary, he's as stunningly expressive as Tim Buckley in his prime. Banhart's voice is a subtly shifting quaver that probes the implications of each and every finely crafted phrase he rolls out. It's a voice that bears witness to the fact that......
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These Are Old Blues
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NY SUN | by Martin EdlundRejoicing in the Hands The term “folk music†has many meanings, most of them wrong. To casual listeners, it calls to mind soothing singer-songwriters like Carly Simon and James Taylor. To satirists, it inspires the flaccid boomer-generation musicians of “A Mighty Wind.†To romantics, it still evokes the ideal of the scruffy troubadour — an old Guthrie or a young Dylan — belting ballads in Greenwich Village Cafés. What it literally means, though, is the music of the folk, the music of the people. At times in the United States, it has taken on political coloring, often a shade of red, as people have argued that folk music is the exclusive province of the proletariat. But most broadly and most accurately, it describes the music of any culture with its own customs, traditions, practices, and beliefs. The term “folk music†applies equally to Jewish klezmer music, qawwali music of Pakistan, and in America, Appalachian music, zydeco, and the blues, among other styles. By this definition, folk music is a living tradition. Like myth, it needs to be constantly refreshed in order to retain its relevance and cultural power. As soon as people stop adapting verses......
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Rejoicing in the Hands
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Canned Magazine | by David HolmesMature beyond his years, yet marked by the energy and artistic bravery of youthDevendra Banhart’s voice is truly otherworldly. Like his mentor and producer, the Swans’ Michael Gira, his vocals are alternately beautiful and disturbing, depending on the lyrical content of each song. Whether you call him a masculine Chan Marshall or a more tuneful, higher-pitched Dylan, Banhart’s strange quavering warbles add a fascinating dimension to his short, tasteful folk songs. And although he doesn’t necessarily break any new ground on Rejoicing in the Hands, it’s an essential release for any fan of soft, pretty folk music. In 42 minutes, Banhart casually drops 16 songs with his incredible voice and impressive, often formless acoustic guitar-playing acting as the backbone of each track. A few of the songs are accompanied by minimal production which usually consists of little more than a light piano, an added acoustic guitar, and very rarely some strings or horns. But Banhart makes the most of this sparse instrumentation by carefully constructing each part to stand alone brilliantly and yet come together to make something even more than the sum of its parts. Take the title track for instance: at only one......
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DEVENDRA BANHART, "REJOICING IN THE HANDS"
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Brainwashed.com | by Jonathan DeanA marvelous showcase for Banhart's songs and performancesHe possesses the unkempt street-hustler looks of Vincent Gallo, the psychotic vulnerability of Syd Barrett, the spooked lonesomeness of Skip Spence, the instrumental dexterity of Robin Williamson, the naïve sincerity of Tiny Tim, and a voice that sounds like a cross between Marc Bolan's early T. Rex warble and the evocative wail of Karen Dalton. After his superlative debut Oh Me Oh My..., many were quick to heap praise on Devendra Banhart, hailing the 23-year old singer-songwriter as a peerlessly original voice. With such obvious musical precedents for Banhart's intimate, acoustic songcraft, this adulation seems a bit overstated. Despite what has been said, Devendra Banhart hasn't reinvented the wheel. He has, however, used his considerable lyrical and melodic gifts to create a handful of idiosyncratic recordings that speak volumes for his songwriting talent. Oh Me Oh My... was immediately distinctive not only because of Banhart's quavering vocal delivery and incredible fingerstyle, but also because of its willfully low-budget recording aesthetic; the songs were self-recorded live-to-tape on sub-par cassette recorders, Dictaphones and answering machines. Two years on, Devendra Banhart has achieved a modicum of success, championed by Michael Gira, with......