Browse by Artist: BANHART, DEVENDRA

Artist:	BANHART, DEVENDRA
Title:	Oh Me Oh My...
Label:	YOUNG GOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	YG 020CD

"To say Devendra Banhart is unique is an absurd understatement. When I first heard the voice of this completely unknown, precociously talented 21-year-old songwriter, I could not believe it. His occasionally warbling falsetto is alternately bizarre, comical, and often a little frightening. Coupled with his advanced finger-picking guitar style - which itself often veers schizophrenically from gentle grooves into jolting, non-rhythmic stabs and weird harmonic flights of chaos -- and the wildly surreal nature of his truly exceptional lyrics, each of the 21 songs on this CD (some of which clock in at about 30 seconds) contain their own special drama and immediately memorable melodies -- no mean feat when your instrumentation is acoustic guitar and voice, with only the occasional hand clap or whistle thrown in as 'orchestration.' In a popular music environment inundated with computer and electronically generated sound and sanitized ProTools mixes, it's a tremendous relief to hear something so ridiculously compelling, low-tech, utterly personal, and hand-made. The songs were recorded on various borrowed and usually broken 4-track cassette recorders by Banhart himself in various haphazard locations around the globe. These recordings were made solely for himself, and they're better for it -- devoid of any self-consciousness or artifice, just utterly personal and idiosyncratic, magically twisted and imaginative. All kinds of comparisons that might be relevant in describing Banhart -- from Marc Bolan's pre-T. Rex recordings to Daniel Johnston, to Nick Drake's inner purity and pathos, to Karen Dalton (one of Banhart's idols)." --Michael Gira

Artist:	BANHART, DEVENDRA
Title:	Rejoicing In The Hands
Label:	YOUNG GOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	YG 024CD

"With songwriting and guitar-playing that have progressed since Oh Me Oh My The Way The Day Goes By The Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs Of The Christmas Spirit, and determined not to be ghettoized as a low-fi crank, Devendra Banhart and Michael Gira agreed it was best to move on to professional recording studios. Banhart sat on a stool in that living room for ten days, twelve hours per, playing constantly, sometimes with a chorus of cicadas when they recorded at night with open windows. Overdubs were later added back in NYC. The title tune, a duet with the legendary '60s English folk gamin (one of Banhart idols) Vashti Bunyan -- is an obvious highlight, but Banhart's uncanny ability to transport the listener through words, voice, and pretty amazing finger-picked acoustic guitar is where the album's magic lies."

Artist:	BANHART, DEVENDRA
Title:	Nino Rojo
Label:	YOUNG GOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	YG 025CD

"Culled from the same sessions as Rejoicing In The Hands, Niño Rojo is a companion album -- essentially the second part of a double album. Devendra Banhart is so amazingly magical, unique, and genuine that people just gravitate naturally to his music; best friends' grandmothers relate to it, hard-ass experimentalists enthuse about it, even country/bluegrass purists recognize the man's talents. He emanates joy, generosity, whimsical imagination, superb guitar playing, lyrical complexity, and an absolutely one-of-a-kind voice. Niño Rojo does have a little more orchestration than Rejoicing, but that's more by coincidence than anything else, and simply adds a little color to the songs. Not even strictly necessary at all. Everything was there on tape when originally Banhart performed it."

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