Devendra Banhart

Photo Gallery

• Genre: Neo Psychedelic
• Hometown: San Francisco
• Devendra Banhart Website

About

It's kind of amazing and even a bit weird how San Francisco's Devendra Banhart seemed to blow up overnight. But in the indie realm of popular music he had everything going for him. His 2002 debut of lo-fi four-track folk recordings, Oh Me Oh My..., was released to rave reviews -- garnering many a comparison to the likes of Donovan, Marc Bolan, Tiny Tim and even Bob Dylan -- all while he was just 21 years old. And of course it doesn't hurt that he has the magazine-friendly good looks of a young Vincent Gallo. He was also undeniably in the right place at the right time. As bands like Piano Magic recorded with Brit folk cult chanteuse Vashti Bunyan and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci unleashed The Blue Trees (an exquisite acoustic album overflowing with Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band adoration), the hipsters of planet indie were starting to discover psychedelic folk music. With Karen Dalton's and Linda Perhacs' respective albums being reissued, Banhart's own style of art school folk songs couldn't have surfaced at a better time. His next release was 2003's The Black Babies, an eight-song EP, that was met with even more critical praise; but it was 2004's Rejoicing In The Hands where he really made a mark, leaving behind his stream-of-conscious-by-way-of-record-collection-osmosis style of rambling for more intelligent song arrangements, peppered with lush accompaniment from the San Francisco folk band, Vetiver. The demure Bunyan also made a cameo here, harmonizing with Banhart on the title track. By the time all the cool magazines had something to say about this young and prolific bard, he had released another full-length entitled Nino Rojo, nothing less than an elegant dessert to the full regal meal of Rejoicing In the Hands. Just to confirm that the musician was riding the crest of a new zeitgeist, more and more music venues were booking bearded acoustic bands who looked and played somewhat like Banhart. Then, when warble-voiced luminary Joanna Newsom's 2004 harp-plucked debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, came out to a parade of accolades, the music media jumped on the fact that she and Banhart happened to be good friends and thus the indie genre of "freak folk" was coined, crowning Banhart and Newsom as the king and queen of the movement. In 2005, Banhart and his electric ensemble, the Hairy Fairy Band, released the epic album Cripple Crow, a 22-song masterpiece that was recorded in upstate New York. Yes, that may sound quite reminiscent of Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes but if Cripple Crow is to be compared to anything or anyone, it sounds more influenced by John Lennon, especially on the peaceful protest of "Heard Somebody Say," while "Long-Haired Child" recalls Bolan-era "John's Children." The five songs that are sung in Spanish on the disc seem to harken back to his Venezuelan upbringing, but they also point towards a quasi-bossa nova direction that nobody could have predicted, which is perfectly in character with Banhart, since he has staunchly refused to make the same album twice.

- Eric Shea