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.
Diamanda Galas
Please wear a helmet when listening to this. Seriously, her voice is so awesome that I flipped out and hit my head on the kitchen-dish thing at Jumpin Java.
Interactive Art With Wooden Mirrors
Trip out on this just for that moment where the wood “mirrors” flash a face at ya.
Joseph Beuys
The archetype of the conceptual artist, the father of clarity/confusion, myth/dream/power, of “you too can be an artist,” of “make up the rules.” Of humor, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_rYiBm_Qk
The Auerglass
The Auerglass, built and played by Tauba Auerbach and Cameron Mesirow.
One reply on “Devendra Banhart’s Dearest Friends: 60 Videos, Part 15”
Devandra Banhart is the archetype of the black-hole-of-faux-creativity-artist, the father of bullshit/bullshit, obfuscator/egotist/counter-culture-winter, of “You can make be people want to drown themselves in something caustic too”, I’d also venture a guess that he is completely humorless.