Pages tagged “devendra banhart”
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It appears that the old adage, “What goes around, comes around,” has rang true once again. Last fall, when Natalie Portman was making Big Change, a compilation CD for her charity-of-choice FINCA, Devendra Banhart did her a favor by offering a previously-unreleased track, “There’s Always Something Happening,” to help out with the worthy cause.
And in response? Well, just a few short weeks ago, Portman could be found at Banhart’s studio and temporary abode in the canyons of L.A., starring in his newest music video. Even though that music video won’t be providing funds to the world’s lowest-income entrepreneurs, it’s still fairly exciting news, no?
Although both parties were decidedly secretive about the project at first, it has since been revealed that the video is for “Carmensita,” the danceable, maraca-filled latest single from Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.
Meanwhie, Devendra has a few summertime shows:
June
29 - Hollywood Bowl @ Los Angeles, Calif.
August
22 - 24 - Outside Lands Festival @ San Francisco, Calif.
Related links:
News: Natalie Portman curates indie-flavored charity comp
News: Folks get freaky in Banhart video
Dress Devendra
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Where to turn when boredom comes knocking? Is it the wilds of MySpace, the feed of Facebook, the mezzanine of YouTube? Nay, no, nine—who can save us from the monotony? Devendra Banhart. Yes, that’s right. Devendra saves the day.
His "DRESS ME" site has all the charm of Victorian paper dolls and all the weirdness that is Banhart, Vitruvian-man style, in his skivvies.
Masterminded by OSK Design, which is best known for its artists’ work for Genghis Tron, this page has everything that Banhart could possibly ever need to face the day. Feeling a little college professor-ish? Here, try some Gurkee’s on with these knee-high socks. Time for a trip to the shore? Don’t forget the straw hat (indie folksters burn easily, you know).
For full effect, turn on Smoky Rolls Down Thunder Canyon and go to town. C’mon, you know you want to.
Related links:
Dress Me Devendra
DevendraBanhart.com
OSKDesign.com
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Thunder
By Jeff Leven
It’s a testament to his backhanded skill that you don’t have to like Devendra Banhart to enjoy his music. Sidestepping the trappings of his admitted pretensions, if you found this album on vinyl in the basement of any college-town record store you’d pat yourself on the back for your cratedigging skills and play “Samba Vexillographica” when the fifth glass of wine was poured. And, frankly, there’s something jarringly real about Banhart’s overt identification with the sonic aesthetics of the 1960s. Drenched in a convincing patina of analog production, songs like “Seahorse” or “Bad Girl” can truly pass as Laurel Canyon castaways, and there’s a sense that the collective THC cough of Monterrey Pop somehow slunk its way across four decades and into the body of a misplaced hipster. Even the intense Orbisonesque oy-vey oddball weirdness of “Shabop Shalom” sounds like it belongs in the playlist of a border radio station that no longer exists. The childlike ambition of Banhart’s sprawl belies an undersung warmth. At a time when so many retrograde genre exercises feel premeditated, Banhart’s loopiness is a sloppy brew with a truly intoxicating aftertaste.
Blunder
By Andy Beta
Despite a title that seemingly promises high-octane car chases (this after posting possible titles like The Burnt Frizbee and Foreskin Sword to his MySpace page), Devendra Banhart’s fifth full-length instead continues wallowing in the same drugged-out sound of his previous efforts. While his debut offered abject weirdness and answering-machine fidelity, Banhart matured and blossomed with 2004’s dual releases Rejoicing in the Hands and Nino Rojo. But the very next year found Banhart navel-gazing, or else staring off into space, barely bothering to flesh out the childish lyricism of
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Hippies and the internet — they go together like peas and ferrets. In the run-up to the release of his newest album, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, due September 25, Devendra Banhart has been leaking small bits of the album for fans via his new website. First, the website started streaming two tracks from Smokey every Friday. And now we have a further glimpse into the life of Banhart and Co.: A new behind-the-scenes video of the writing and recording sessions for Smokey. The clip is set to "Seahorse," an eight-minute epic off the new album.
The website is careful to mention that this is not a music video, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no shortage of trippy footage. (Case in point: About four minutes in, Devendra dances around in his boxers with a gun.) Gael García Bernal — star of Y Tú Mama También, Bad Education, The Motorcycle Diaries, and a whole bunch more great Spanish-language films — shows up with about 5:28 left on the video. Rumors have been circulating that the actor performs a duet with Banhart on the new record, and though it’s hard to tell, it almost sounds like the actor on “Rosa.” You can judge for yourself here.
Video Below:
Banhart's upcoming tour dates:
August :
10 - Oslo, Norway @ Oya Festival
11 - Gothenburg, Sweden @ Way Out Festival
13 - Hambury, Germany @ Knust
15 - Cologne, Germany @ Gebaude 9
16 - Hasselt, Belgium @ Pukkelpop
17 - Biddinghuizen, Netherlands @ Lowlands Festival
18 - Brecon Beacons, Wales @ Green Man Festival
21 - Paris, France @ L'European
23 - Glasgow, Scotland @ The Arches
24 - Leeds, England @ Carling Festival
26 - Reading, England @ Carling Festival
September
1 - Vancouver, Canada @ Commodore Ballroom
2 - Seattle, Wis @ Bumbershoot Festival
4 - Portland, Ore. @ Crystal Ballroom
6 - Santa Cruz, Calif. @ Rio Theater
7 - Berkeley, Calif. @ Zellerbach Hall
10 - Denver, Colo. @ Ogden Theater
12 - Omaha, Neb. @ Sokol Auditorium
13 - Lawrence, Kan. @ Liberty Hall Theater
15 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Avenue
16 - Milwaukee, Wis. @ Pabst Theater
18 - Chicago, Ill. @ Portage Theater
19 - Detroit, Mich. @ Majestic Theater
21 - Toronto, Canada @ Danforth Music Hall
22 - Montreal, Canada @ Theatre National
23 - Burlington, Vt. @ U of VT Davis Center Grand Ballroom
25 - Boston, Mass. @ Roxy Ballroom
27 - New York, N.Y. @ Grand Ballroom
29 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Theater of the Living Arts
October
1 - Washington, DC @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
4 - Nashville, Tenn. @ City Hall
6 - Dallas, Texas @ Granada Theater
7 - Austin, Texas @ La Zona Rosa
09 - Albuquerque, N.M. @ Sunshine Theater
10 - Tuscon, Ariz. @ Rialto Theater
12 - Phoenix, Ariz @ Marquee Theater
12 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Orpheum Theater
Related links:
DevendraBanhart.com
Devendra Banhart Video
Devendra Banhart on MySpace
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ArticlesInsound.com, the leading online store for independent music, has launched a campaign called “Save The Album.” It is designed to allow customers to choose to buy CDs, LPs and now MP3s — but only as the entire album, and not as individual songs. Also, the MP3 format will allow the customers to easily move the music to any portable device they choose.
Artists involved in this campaign includes Devendra Banhart, The Decemberists, Bloc Party, The Mountain Goats, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Walkmen and Lou Barlow, who all have recorded videos celebrating their favorite albums.
The videos can be seen at www.savethealbum.com.
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ArticlesAccording to his website, neo-psychedelic folkie Devendra Banhart will be taking to the sea to record a new album in late September. The album, to be recorded both on land and on a rental boat in California and Rio de Janeiro, is currently going by the tentative title of Smokey, although that will likely be the name of the film accompanying the album. The additional DVD will include a collection of tours, the writing and recording of the album, and images of Banhart’s life at home.
XL Recordings has called the album “half extremely mellow, breezy, one quarter melancholic drone bummer, and one quarter equatorial pop.” Guest artist hopefuls include Vashti Bunyan, Moon and Moon, Linda Perhacs and Vetiver.
For more information on Devendra and the new album, visit xlrecordings.com/cripplecrow.
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More sedate quirkiness from freakfolk eccentric
For all the instrumental trappings draped atop Devendra Banhart’s songs on Cripple Crow—electric guitars, strings, pianos, and drums—it remains Banhart’s stylized approach that first attracts the ear. His voice—a pinched, warbly, nasal thing—simultaneously strikes as hyper-affected and completely unselfconscious (and might turn a listener off instantly if heard as the former). As with the two other full-lengths (and five-song split-album) Banhart’s issued in the past year, his songs glide on an ever-shifting bed of gentle fingerpicked cross-rhythms.
And, like those releases, Cripple Crow is stacked—22 tracks across 80 minutes. Banhart seems the kind of prodigious songwriter who effortlessly breathes material. Cripple Crow often resembles a dream journal of half-remembered morningtime fragments. When it succeeds, such as the surreal, utopian near-rag of “Some People Ride the Wave” (“Me, I ride the wave of never-gonna-drown!”) and the 59-second tone poem “Dragonflies,” Banhart taps a magically easygoing energy that seems drawn from San Francisco in the mid ’60s (or maybe just the late ’90s).
But there’s chaff, too. There are no outright misfires, but some songs—“Hows About Tellin’ A Story,” “I Love That Man,” “Lazy Butterfly”—remain mood pieces that never build up enough sense of occasion to find structure within Banhart’s listless wistfulness. There, Banhart straddles a tough line between psychedelic beauty and lite crooning. But, who knows? He can’t keep up the pace forever. When Banhart slows, Cripple Crow could well reveal itself to be an embarrassment of riches.
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Articles(Above [L-R]: Andy Cabic, Devendra Banhart, Noah Georgeson, Thom Monahan. Photo by Autumn Dewilde.)
More than any of his contemporaries in what has become an extended musical family, freakfolk avatar Devendra Banhart has fomented a rebellion against Pro Tooled and packaged popular music—he’s a Moses in reverse, leading his disciples back into the wilderness. But Banhart is hardly a Luddite, and what many of his fans don’t realize is that the rustic nature of his recordings has been more a matter of severe limitations than any philosophical stance.
So when he began work on Cripple Crow—his fourth full-length album and first for a full-fledged record label (XL)—Banhart for the first time was afforded an opportunity to fashion an album with a full set of resources, including a sizable budget and an actual recording studio, as well as his choice of producer and players. Naturally, he utilized these resources his own way.
The Production Team
“We had the opportunity to work with some bigwig dudes, and it seemed so ridiculous and pointless,” says Banhart. Instead, he tapped two friends, Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom) and Andy Cabic (leader of S.F.-based acoustic group Vetiver). This brain trust had enough brains to know they still lacked a crucial component—a bona fide studio expert to guide them through their first big-time project. Without hesitation, Banhart rang up Thom Monahan, bassist and producer of the Pernice Brothers, who’d gotten to know all three while producing Vetiver’s debut album and EP (he also recently produced the band’s full-length follow-up). Monahan enthusiastically accepted the co-producer role. “It was like working with family,” he says. Banhart agrees. “Thom has the most endless source of energy of anyone I’ve ever met. We love Thom.”
Monahan felt right at home in this crowd. “I’m not this super-top-down producer,” he says. “I’m in a production role most of the time, but I co-produce with people—that’s what I do. Joe Pernice’s brother said that I’m like a player/coach, and that was the coolest thing that anybody could ever say.”
The Facility
The whole crew, including a sizable revolving cast of players, convened in March at hallowed Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., to help their bro make a record. “I don’t really care about the equipment,” Banhart points out. “I care about the stored vibrations of a space. Bearsville was just what we needed, because it’s all pure wood, and wood stores energy—it was just a straight-up, aged-energy battery. It was the perfect studio for this record.”
Bearsville, says Monahan, “was technically incredible because I had tons of ribbon mics to choose from, great preamps, everything. It was totally straight-up, old-school, classic recording, straight to tape. I just didn’t want it to sound like some up-to-date, state-of-the-art, modern record.”
The Sessions
“Making a record is like cooking,” Banhart offers. “The ?rst record I ever made, I was cooking but with very shitty utensils and very shitty ingredients—like a matchstick, the corner of a piece of paper, some peanut butter from the ’80s, a broken lighter, a couple of pieces of hair, etc. And on Rejoicing in the Hands and Nino Rojo, it was just a recipe book. On this record, we tried to get cooking, but it’s still not a full meal. I hope to someday make something that feels like an entire meal.”
There’s an old adage that too many cooks spoil the broth, but according to Monahan, the members of the four-man production team interacted effectively during their month at Bearsville—they did, after all, manage to complete 40 tracks (with 22 making the album). “It was a very fluid kind of thing,” Thom explains. “Everybody was engaged in making decisions. My job was making sure that we were getting the right tones and going in the right direction. Noah was awesome to work with, and Andy is just a totally amazing person.”
The sessions proceeded at a careening pace. “I didn’t know what was gonna happen from one moment to the next,” Monahan admits. “We’d go in a million different directions. One day I had 14 mics up just for percussion because there was so much stuff going on that I had to be able to respond to it in an instant. It was like, boom, do it, go to the next take—it was kung-fu action all the time. You totally had to not think about it, just get it done. That record was only possible because people nailed their parts. You’d run it down for them, they’d rehearse it, you’d roll tape and they would peg it.
“It was as ideal a situation as you could possibly imagine,” the producer marvels. “You were there with your best friends, making a record with somebody who’s firing on all cylinders all day long. Devendra was f—ing incredible. He would go out and do a vocal take or a guitar overdub, and he would be completely throwing himself into it. He’s not psychotically running around and screaming into a microphone all day; he’s trying to make music in a way that he feels is true to himself and is the best that he can do.”
The Result
There was obviously a lot of love in the room; Banhart’s dad even cooked dinner every night for the entire entourage. And out of all that love came tangible results. Cripple Crow is the most developed work of Banhart’s short career, yet it sounds utterly homemade. And in “Long Haired Child”—with its infectious groove, beguiling vocal and a lyric that’s at once insightful and hilarious—Banhart and his cohorts have fashioned what actually sounds like a radio hit, inadvertent as that may have been.
“For me, this record had a glow about it,” say the 38-year-old Monahan. “I really consider myself lucky to have been there. If I get to do this as a career, I’ll get hired by people I don’t know, and at some point I’ll be doing something I’m not as engaged in. But for that moment, I couldn’t have been more down with what was going on.”
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Episode 70
August 19, 2008
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