Pioneers in music seem to come and go as easily as the genres that they front seem to slide in and out of harmonic fashion.
Take Devendra Banhart for instance. Pinned as the eclectic and bohemian instigator of what’s become known as the ‘freak folk’ genre and ‘new weird America’ movement, Banhart’s dug himself a solid standing at the forefront of fellow contemporaries such as Akron Family and Ariel Pink.
The Venezuelan-American singer-songwriter, now being in the bizz for just over a decade, delivers his eighth studio album Mala as a slightly less abrupt collection of music than its predecessors.
Mala is a whimsical and light hearted window into the personal life of Banhart, embarking on a stream of consciousness throughout the world of his everyday life.
Laced with feathery soundscapes, such as that in ‘The Ballad Of Keenan Milton,’ Banhart plays the role of narrator, lead character and peripheral onlooker to the stories played out on the album.
Full of mystique and hazy ambiguity, the record floats between playful and soft folk to swaying jazz numbers and fanciful RnB doused in spots with 80s amorphous synths.
‘Daniel’ sees Banhart recalling an evening with a loved one “waiting in line to see suede play” as an illuminated snare sieves into a delicate and warm lead guitar continuing a simple melody.
Reverberated vocals and airy psychedelic undertones drift amongst hypnotic dusks as the extremely charming playfulness of Banhart moves amongst cloudy production aesthetics.
Mala is a collection of songs about love and life, even more fitting is the loose translation of the word to “loved one” in the native tongue of his current Serbian girlfriend.
Was that an ‘awwwwwww’?
