I always panic when asked me who my favorite artist is. I listen to too much music and genres and, come now… what kind of question is that!
On the other hand, whenever Devendra Banhart‘s gently vibrating voice touches my ears, I have an answer to that pretentious question: he is the king of my listenings as well as Zeus is the ruler of Olympus.
Devendra was born in Houston, Texas, to a Venezuelan mother and an American father. He was raised in Caracas and Los Angeles, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, before dropping his debut freak folk album The Charles C. Leary in 2002.
From that album he increasingly perfected his unique sound inspired by indie folk, psych influences and Tropicalia (the Brazilian artistic movement that was begun by Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil and the Os Mutantes). In the following years Banhart dropped Rejoicing in The Hands, Niño Rojo and Cripple Crow, becoming one of the most bizarre, incredibly creative and complete artists of his generation.
However, at that time Banhart was confined to a niche of people who were fascinated by his intimate or exotic atmospheres as well as by the exciting reverberation of his voice and his mysterious but adorable figure.
Banhart is not just a musician and songwriter: his drawings were featured in the San Francisco MOMA in 2007 and he recently released his first collection of poetry.
You could actually find on YouTube a homemade video of Devendra and Marcelo Burlon tattooing each other in LA.
In short, Devendra is an all-round artist, a neo-hippie who doesn’t like hippies and has the ambition to get out of this category, experimenting album after album in different directions even under the same unmistakable trademark.
From Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon to What We Will Be, Banhart combines a wide range of influences including samba, reggae, Arthur Russell, classic rock and psych-folk, alternating between this exercise and his lethargic and emotive sound that has always been his greatest strength.
A decade after his debut, Devendra dropped Mala which is plenty of most legible songs influenced by electronic vibes. For him, it was the opportunity to show that he knows how to take himself seriously.
His ninth LP Ape In Pink Marble continues on with the wispy coziness of Mala but it is the farthest album from what I’ve always loved in his previous records. Maybe Ape is his least successful work and for this reason, we expect his tenth album makes is right again.
Devendra’s new album Ma will be released on September 13 on Nonesuch Records. It was anticipated by three singles which give hope of a change of direction compared to the previous 2016’s Ape In Pink Marble.
The first one, Kantori Ongaku, immediately reminds us of the Cripple Crow‘s atmospheres because it echoes its sparkling sounds as well as his charismatic mix of Spanish and English.
Not least, the video for Kantori directed by Juliana and Nicky Giraffe reminds us of the same aesthetic madness we found in Carmencita.
The confirmation that Ma is moving in this direction comes with the second single, Abre Las Manos, which is much more exotic and tropical than the first and, this time, totally in Spanish language.
The feeling is that Devendra wants to put back the cornerstones of his career (Cripple Crow, Smokey, What We Will Be) and cement them with his tenth album.
We are sure that there will be also more reflective traces, as suggested by the third and final single released, Memorial, which remembers Leonard Cohen and the evocative atmospheres of Last Song For B. Those tracks serve to break a palette of bright colors or fill in the emptiness created by the absences.
“Ma” is a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as “gap”, “space”, “pause” or “the space between two structural parts. It also describes “an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled”.
So imagine a pause that, after a break, prepares you for a new time.
Ma is the new time for Devendra Banhart. Or at least it’s what we’re expecting.
