PRESS
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Devendra Banhart | Interview
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indiepop.com | Amanda BristowDevendra Banhart Fights Sammy Hagar at the Sushi BarI've been waiting a long time for someone like Devendra Banhart to come along, borne on a wave of amber, gypsy, lone mystique that is usually reserved for outsider artists or musicologist findings. My information on Devendra is patchy, but lore leads me to believe that he's a fledgling 22-year old Texas native who spent a goodly portion of his youth in Venezuela and somewhere along the way picked up a guitar. He moved back to the States, attended art school, and then abandoned art instruction to pursue the Holy Sound. Enter Michael Gira, ex-Swans vocalist and founder of Angels of Light, who happened upon Banhart and his homemade tape, and released the 22 tracks that comprise Oh Me Oh My the Way the Day Goes By the Sun is Setting Dogs are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit on his Young God Records label late last year. The fact that a scrappy lad such as Devendra has reaped much oooing and ahhing from the usually smirking public is testament to the rough-finish beauty of his songs and to the honesty of his approach. Recorded mostly on borrowed 4-tracks......
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Devendra Banhart | Oh Me Oh My | Review
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Magnet Magazine | Patrick BerkeryIf you could write songs this freakily enticing, you¹d be laughing, too.Devendra Banhart has a warbly-yet-warm voice that sounds like a thick slab of dusty old vinyl spinning on a poorly calibrated turntable. His songs are filled with more than enough non-sequiturs and cartoon nihilism (³I¹m burying your head in a bed of swords²) to color him a loose screw beyond compare. He uses the incidental tape hiss of a four-track recorder as a backdrop for his voice and finger-plucked acoustic guitar. The 21-year-old singer/ songwriter writes such beautifully crackpot songs that there will no doubt be a cult of like-minded souls hanging on his every line about ³white-ass suits² and ³lion tattoos² one day. For musical precedents, think the folkie Marc Bolan, Daniel Johnston and Syd Barrett at his most dour. For spiritual precedent, think Crispin Glover¹s infamous Letterman appearance. Oh Me Oh My... proves Banhart is a prolific troubadour (22 songs ranging in length from 39 seconds to 4:30) seriously fucking shit up with his fragile fairy tales, accidental spirituals, warped glam blues and even the odd love song. ³Roots (If The Sky Were A Stone)² is Banhart¹s very spooky explanation of nature¹s way,......
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Michael Gira | Interview
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BBGUN MAGAZINE, ISSUE #6 | Bob BertNew Mind Of A Young GodThe first time I went to see this band, that I would later join called Sonic Youth in 1981 at the Mudd Club, I was first slammed into a new stratosphere by the opening band, Swans. The line-up then was Michael Gira and Thurston Moore both pounding basses in singular slow extremely loud harmonics, Jonathan Kane playing a double bass drum humongous kit, Roli Mosimann playing a metal table with a thick deadly chain, and a butch guitar player (Sue Hanel) whose sound can only be described as two brontosauruses fucking. The slow throbbing thunderous roar coming from that tiny stage with lyrics such as "getting taken to the basement, getting fucked to ease some tension" scared even the downtown trendies of the time running holding their ears. Mike lived in a windowless bunker on 6th and Ave B with empty 40-ouncers and photos of men hanging from the ceiling from meat hooks adorning the walls. This is where both Swans and Sonic Youth started out rehearsing. Both bands crammed into one van with a U-Haul and headed down south and then to the Midwest to attempt to convert......
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Michael Gira | Interview
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BBGUN MAGAZINE, ISSUE #6 | Bob BertNew Mind Of A Young GodThe first time I went to see this band, that I would later join called Sonic Youth in 1981 at the Mudd Club, I was first slammed into a new stratosphere by the opening band, Swans. The line-up then was Michael Gira and Thurston Moore both pounding basses in singular slow extremely loud harmonics, Jonathan Kane playing a double bass drum humongous kit, Roli Mosimann playing a metal table with a thick deadly chain, and a butch guitar player (Sue Hanel) whose sound can only be described as two brontosauruses fucking. The slow throbbing thunderous roar coming from that tiny stage with lyrics such as "getting taken to the basement, getting fucked to ease some tension" scared even the downtown trendies of the time running holding their ears. Mike lived in a windowless bunker on 6th and Ave B with empty 40-ouncers and photos of men hanging from the ceiling from meat hooks adorning the walls. This is where both Swans and Sonic Youth started out rehearsing. Both bands crammed into one van with a U-Haul and headed down south and then to the Midwest to attempt to convert......
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SOULFUL BANHART
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San Francisco Chronicle | by Neva ChoninOh Me Oh My . . . Young God Records Take one damaged 21-year-old drifter, give him an acoustic guitar and some busted four-track recorders, and the result is a compelling mix of the eccentric and the sublime. Certainly Devendra Banhart's beautifully raw debut album sounds like nothing else, from the tremulous vocals of "Nice People" and the abstract guitar pickings of "Pumpkin Seeds" to spates of ambient noise and stream-of- consciousness lyrics. "Oh Me Oh My . . ." (full title: "Oh Me Oh My the Way the Day Goes By the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit") is more than just spittle in the face of an over-processed music industry. Soulful, troubling and troubled, it's a spiritual manifesto from a one-man species....