With the release of major-label debut What Will We Be (Warner Bros.), Devendra Banhart proves once again he has the potential to be one of his generation’s major players. His voice, with its careening vibrato and fuse-blowing intensity, sounds something like Marc Bolan’s, but his repertoire may be more all over the map than anyone making records today. He combines a love of arcane folk music with hard-rocking psychedelia and an ability to sing beautifully in English or Spanish, a skill he learned growing up in Caracas, Venezuela. He refers to himself, jokingly, as a “fake hippie,” but he appears to be the real thing, a refreshing return to the revolutionary thinking that once seemed capable of changing the course of human events. Who’s to say it couldn’t happen again? Banhart is guest editing magnetmagazine.com. Read our Q&A with him. For his posts this week, Banhart will be sharing 60 videos that are dear to his heart.
Andrew Bird
One of my favorite songs, performances, lyrics, everything.
Henrik Vibskov
He makes my favorite sweater! And also, he built this cacophonous awesomeness.
Atahualpa Yupanqui
Don Ata.
Asa-Chang & Junray
Thanks, Andy, again and again. This song, this album, is amamamzing. I always imagine the song is actually a cyborg dying; it’s “brain” is goin’ through the motions, all the voices it’s heard throughout its life. So much love in this digitized voice. Super sublime creepyness. To quote Fab Moretti, “In Japan … they fly.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWCD9EtKPAY
