PRESS
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Davendra Banhart | Oh Me Oh My | Review
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The London Observer | Kitty Empirehe's a rare findFew records are truly unsettling. Oh Me Oh My The Way The Day Goes By The Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs Of The Christmas Spirit to give Banhart's album its full title is one of this rare fellowship. The bearded and wild-eyed Vincent Gallo attempted recently to make an album as strange as this one and failed. Oh Me Oh My is less an album, more a poisoned stream of semi conscious primitive folk that divides roughly into 22 songs. 'Nice People' , particularly, clocks in at a lengthy 3 minutes, and its creep falsetto chorus 'They certainly are nice people,' becomes more disturbing with every repetition. For all their considerable eccentricity, however, Banhart's plucked melodies are as compelling as they are unusual. Banhart is a nomadic soul who lives in a New York squat and worships the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Karen Dalton, and Mississippi John Hurt. His more modern peers are Will Oldham and Cat Power and, like them, he's not for everyone. But he's a rare find....
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PALESTINE/COULTER/MATHOUL | Maximin
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in19.com | Dorian Bastothat sense of joy and awe that Palestine's work always seems to touch onYou'd think with such a determined course of action some people would just run out of ideas. Granted, plenty have. Look at popular pariah La Monte Young or upper crust panderers like Philip Glass and you'll see just what a played-out fever dream repetition can be. Obviously, these are two easy targets doing very different music, Glass's additive/subtractive cyclical compositions have more or less devolved to the point where they just sound like easy-bake film music along the lines of a composer like John Williams. I'd like to take the credit for attributing John Williams with the moniker of "minimalist," but that distinct pleasure goes to composer Charlemagne Palestine, who could probably teach Glass and Young a thing or two about their music. Palestine's work has more shared territory with Young than it does with Glass. Long drones, microtonal quivers, epic duration all factor in, but Palestine places importance on innovation and physicality. Palestine's work shows a composer who hurdles himself into his music and requires that the listener do the same. Apparently, he's even bloodied his fists on numerous occasions from the sheer......
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Davendra Banhart | Oh Me Oh My | Review
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HARTFORD COURANT | ERIC R. DANTONOne of the most fascinating records this yearcomes from Devendra Banhart, a 21-year-old wanderer as eccentric as anyone who has ever picked up an acoustic guitar. With a quavery voice, lyrical non sequiturs and meandering acoustic guitar, the Texas-born musician evokes Syd Barrett and very early Marc Bolan on the 22 tracks that make up his debut, "Oh Me Oh My ..." The songs are unprocessed, stream-of-consciousness missives that Banhart made for himself on borrowed four-track cassette recorders while he drifted haphazardly from San Francisco to Paris, Los Angeles to New York. Friends persuaded him to seek a wider audience, and those raw demos became "Oh Me Oh My ..." "My first impulse on hearing these songs might have been to take him into a studio and `produce' a record for him, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made," Michael Gira, head of Young God Records, wrote in the press notes accompanying the album. Despite the scratchy sound - calling it lo-fi is generous; "handmade" is more accurate - and the occasional bang from fireworks, gunshots (really) or other unintended ambient noises, it's clear why Gira was reluctant to mess......
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Davendra Banhart | Oh Me Oh My | Review
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HARTFORD COURANT | ERIC R. DANTONOne of the most fascinating records this yearcomes from Devendra Banhart, a 21-year-old wanderer as eccentric as anyone who has ever picked up an acoustic guitar. With a quavery voice, lyrical non sequiturs and meandering acoustic guitar, the Texas-born musician evokes Syd Barrett and very early Marc Bolan on the 22 tracks that make up his debut, "Oh Me Oh My ..." The songs are unprocessed, stream-of-consciousness missives that Banhart made for himself on borrowed four-track cassette recorders while he drifted haphazardly from San Francisco to Paris, Los Angeles to New York. Friends persuaded him to seek a wider audience, and those raw demos became "Oh Me Oh My ..." "My first impulse on hearing these songs might have been to take him into a studio and `produce' a record for him, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made," Michael Gira, head of Young God Records, wrote in the press notes accompanying the album. Despite the scratchy sound - calling it lo-fi is generous; "handmade" is more accurate - and the occasional bang from fireworks, gunshots (really) or other unintended ambient noises, it's clear why Gira was reluctant to mess......
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Davendra Banhart | Oh Me Oh My | Review
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NY SUN | MARTIN EDLUNDnaïve originality, as if he'd just never heard the way everybody else plays musicIf he were anything but a 21-year-old former art student living in Williamsburg, Devandara Banhart would probably be relegated to that musical Island of Misfit Toys called "Outsider Music" (joining curiosities such as Daniel Johnston, Tiny Tim and the Shaggs). Banhart has Outsider Music's endearing eccentricity and naïve originality, as if he'd just never heard the way everybody else plays music. Banhart's debut album - the unwieldily titled "Oh Me Oh My.The Way The Day Goes By the Sun is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit" released in late October - was recorded on borrowed four- track cassette recorders, giving it a charming, lo-fi quirkiness. His only instrument is an acoustic guitar; percussion consists of finger snaps and handclaps. A faint hiss of tape can be heard behind the music, just like in the old Alan Lomax Blues field recordings. The songs are simple too, though not simpleminded. "Make It Easier" consists mostly of the line "It's cold outside, we should come inside" sung as a kind of one-man round. On "Cosmos and Demos" the verses have the cadence of......