Published in LiP Magazine
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NINO ROJO
by Devendra Banhart
review by Jon Pruett
12.12.04
Nino Rojo is the second album to be released by Devendra Banhart this year. The first, Rejoicing in the Hands, came out in April and marked a decided turn of events since his fragmented, disjointed, but wholly compelling debut, Oh Me, Oh My in 2002. Where one could hear the primitive hiss, the shrieks and four-track fumbles of his debut and compartmentalize it as some variation on "outsider folk" or youthful psychedelic rambles, Rejoicing in the Hands showed that there was a songwriter within: one who could create music as pure and affecting as any Beach Boys pop tune (see "The Body Breaks"), with a pathos that was just as wounded and sincere as any Tim Buckley folk moan. And yet there remained that undercurrent of surrealism and lyrical metaphor that made it wholly unique. The final track on Rejoicing, "Autumn Child" put Banhart behind the piano; the starkness and melody that came forth put an elegiac end to an album that should put to rest any notion that he was merely an urban eccentric with a fetish for writing about hands and teeth.
Nino Rojo begins with a cover of the Jenkins song, "Wake Up, Little Sparrow." Ella Jenkins is known for the children's records she recorded for Folkways, which mix up call-and-response techniques, traditional folk and gospel music in a way that is direct, pure and from the heart. It's not hard to see the appeal of her songs. It's an approach Banhart uses, although he can't help but twist it slightly with his alliterative and often unsettling imagery ("I put the ovaries in my mouth," he sings on the especially dark "Hose Down the Dead"). In fact, many of the songs on Nino Rojo border very closely on children's folk. "Little Yellow Spider" is a slightly twisted yet sweet and playful tale of psychedelic squids, white monkeys and dancing crabs with just some minor, low-level swearing and bestiality overtones.
Most apparent throughout this album is that this is basic folk music. It's not alternative, nor is it indie rock. It's folk music that invokes the magical and the mystical, which has generally been the sole property of the bearded and the cloaked. But Banhart is able to give this sound an energy and a voice that's much more accessible to those who have grown up not knowing about strange folk music. He also keeps things earthbound. There are no unicorns here. His delivery ranges from that of a dandified troubadour to a vaudeville showman on Quaaludes to a guy just whispering in the dark.
The songs here were recorded at the same time as Rejoicing, so there isn't an audible progression. What Nino Rojo shows instead is how consistently captivating Banhart's songs are, and how lucky we are that someone is able to make the connection between the bizarre and the beautiful so clearly.
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