Vetiver: Tight Knit

Music Reviews Vetiver
Vetiver: Tight Knit

Breezy, Banhart-less San Franciscan folk soars

Fresh off of covers album More of the Past, Vetiver is back to playing Andy Cabic originals, which means even-keeled cuts of restrained, majestic psych-folk. Cabic sings with silver-throated vocals and in some ways his songs hang loose. In “On the Other Side,” Cabic admits he chooses to “do what comes naturally / No need to push or hurry / That just ain’t my speed.” Still, Tight Knit’s arrangements are rather tightly wound, with the album’s soothing vibe finely calibrated enough to excuse an outlying foray into languid funk (“Another Reason to Go”). Former Vetiver collaborator Devendra Banhart once proposed the term naturalismo for the music coming out of San Francisco’s modern folk scene; Tight Knit—which embarks on the “Rolling Sea” and halts “At Forest Edge”—might come the closest yet to validating this name. Perhaps this is why it feels both timeless and anachronistic—like nature, Vetiver observes its own time.

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