Devendra Banhart – Mala

Devendra Banhart has always been a hard artist to pin down – and that only gets more so with Mala....
Devendra Banhart : Mala
7.3 Nonesuch
2013 

Devendra Banhart : MalaFrom dating to celebrities like Natalie Portman & Drew Barrymore to one of the best beards in heavily bearded indie-dom, Devendra Banhart’s outward persona belies his deeply complex music, which goes from intimate folk to Spanish strums to French New Wave and more.  He has always been a hard artist to pin down – and that only gets more so with Mala.

Banhart does lean most heavily on intimacy and Espanol on Mala.  Pieces like “Daniel” are the kind of intimate folk one found in the sixties (think Simon & Garfunkel), while he sings in Spanish on the Latin guitar ballad “Mi Negrita”.  But Banhart also employs electronic tones, following “Daniel” with the indietronic cool “Für Hildegard von Bingen” – and while there’s no German in “Bingen”, there is some at the end of “Your Fine Petting Duck”.

Sometimes, however, all of Banhart’s many faces can be too much – “Your Fine Petting Duck” in particular.  For most of the song, Banhart gives a great response to every girl group song about wanting to get their bad-boy back – honestly telling them that he’s worse than the man’s she’s with now, in matter-of-fact humor.  But then it randomly goes disco near the end (that’s where the German verse also comes in), for no apparent reason.  The shifts and styles, plus a few sub-two minute pieces that are gone before you get into them, make for a disjointed record.

Being hard to pin down is usually good for an artist – it keeps them from repeating themselves, keeps fans guessing, and generally no one wants to be pigeonholed.  But too much of that and you’re all over the place, doing too many things as opposed to excelling at a few.  Banhart once again threads the needle.

Devendra Banhart – Hatchet Wound

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