Nino Rojo [ECD]

The Wire - "The pinched, quizzical tone is uncannily close to that of pre-electric Mar Bolan....There's a tantalisingly ingenuous spirit behind these 16 songs....His singing and guitar playing are subsumed by a hazy, casual atmosphere." Mojo - 4 stars out of 5 - "His voice quavering like pre-glam Bolan, Banhart casts bare yet mesmerising acoustic spells..." CMJ - "The shiniest of the new breed of post-Barrett crazy diamonds shines on NINO ROJO....Full of those neo-outsider twists and turns, but ups the ante with lusher production..." Uncut - 3 stars out of 5 - "[H]is forte here, as before, is a whimsical anthropomorphy that populates his songs with all manner of animal crackers..." NME (25/09/04, p.64) - 7 (out of 10) - "...still not so much ahead of the pack as on a completely different planet to them..." Uncut (p.97) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[H]is forte here, as before, is a whimsical anthropomorphy that populates his songs with all manner of animal crackers..." The Wire (p.51) - "The pinched, quizzical tone is uncannily close to that of pre-electric Mar Bolan....There's a tantalisingly ingenuous spirit behind these 16 songs....His singing and guitar playing are subsumed by a hazy, casual atmosphere." CMJ (p.4) - "The shiniest of the new breed of post-Barrett crazy diamonds shines on NINO ROJO....Full of those neo-outsider twists and turns, but ups the ante with lusher production..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 - "His voice quavering like pre-glam Bolan, Banhart casts bare yet mesmerising acoustic spells..."

With NINO ROJO, San Francisco Bay Area neo-folkster Devendra Banhart brings forth a companion to his acclaimed REJOICING IN THE HANDS, released earlier in 2004. Sitting barefoot by the metaphorical campfire next to Beck, Tiny Tim, Karen Dalton, and Vincent Gallo, Banhart plays acoustic guitar and sings in a manner that's quirky, catchy, and a bit spooky. Here the tunes range from loopy ditties ("We All Know"), warbled mantras ("Ay Mama"), and half-crooned/half-whispered sing-alongs ("A Ribbon") to works that include a little help from his likeminded friends, including Vetiver's Andy Cabic ("At the Hop"). "Little Yellow Spider" comes off like a perverse Raffi record, as interpreted by Mississippi Fred McDowell. Later, Banhart channels the vocals of both Blind Willie McTell and Marc Bolan for "Noah," which includes whistling and a mournful piano. The enhanced CD presents a great, "psychedelicized" video of Devendra and friends jamming on "At the Hop," which will surely cause pleasant flashbacks for anyone who's ever spent a weekend in a woodsy cabin full of hippies.|

As was promised upon the release of Rejoicing in the Hands in the spring of 2004, Nino Rojo is a companion piece. It was assembled from the same recording sessions at Lynn Bridges' Atlanta home that produced 57 tracks. Thirty-two were chosen for the two albums. Some were overdubbed minimally in New York by Young God label boss Michael Gira and Devendra Banhart adding a nip of keyboard or harmonica here, and tucked in horn, backing vocal, or electric guitar there. What these songs showcase is that Banhart is a songwriter of guileless vision. His unaffected aesthetic is etched in the ether of mysterious traditional and psychedelic folk musics from the British Isle and in an America that disappeared the first time in the '30s with the Dust Bowl and for the second time in the grimness of mid-'70s determinism in the shadows of post-Vietnam shame and malaise. Banhart's songs don't hearken back so much as remind us of what we no longer possess as a culture. His songs are spiritual, terminally unhip, with labyrinthine grown-up melodies and the keen unsullied wisdom of children. These 16 songs include the mysterious minor key cipher that is "A Ribbon," with its eerie guitars, a beautifully etched chorus, and an all but hidden keyboard underscoring the quietly insistent vocal. His cover of Ella Jenkins' "Little Sparrow," opens the album; accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, Banhart transfers the song from the universe of its origin as childhood ballad to a bluesy exhortation to spiritual awakening. A slow, easy major chord stroll, "We All Know," with its delightfully ridiculous lyric ("...we belong to the floating hand that was made by animals/we dance so, we let go/we'll remove clothes and we'll trade lobes...."). Seamlessly it shifts and walks the edge of a vaudeville rag that comes complete with accompanying trombones in the chorus at the end. And speaking of rags, there's the nocturnal spiritual guitar blues of "My Ships" that recalls the Rev. Gary Davis illustrating the point that Banhart confines himself to no one terrain, no single point of origin or destination. For Banhart, writing a song is one discovery -- give a listen to "At the Hop" written with Andy Cabic with its bright, canny, gorgeously impure love poetry -- and recording is another. Combining them is yet a third for both performer and listener. Like its companion recording, Nino Rojo is about the shared delight of new encounters with music and language and is an adventure in the hearing. ~ Thom Jurek