On his website, young DIY folkie Devendra Banhart cites the blues-steeped likes of Fred Neil, Karen Dalton and Mississippi Fred McDowell as influences; he even quotes McDowell on “Roots…”, the second track on his debut disc. Yet as his falsetto warble and gossamer guitar filigrees there reveal, Banhart’s quotidian song paintings — long on nonsequiturs, tape hiss, and la-la-la’s — are more in keeping with the lysergic excursions of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence than the testimonials on his site might suggest.
“Candles in a courtyard and a paper colored cat/While Demo danced on feathers and Cosmos held the hat,” goes a surrealistic couplet from another track, one that begins with the woozy tinkling of a broke-down music box and what sounds like a gun going off. “I know nature is beside me/When he’s inside you/I feel it too,” Banhart chirrups on “Tell Me Something”, a suggestive reverie that recalls Michael Hurley at his most whimsical and freely associative. Much as Doc Snock’s do, Banhart’s lyrics also abound with references to creatures of all stripes, real and imagined.
Banhart’s meanderings aren’t yet on a par with those of his naïf-like forebears; they’re a tad precious — willfully artless — for that. Still, this is an auspicious debut, if only for the humanity evident in Banhart’s musings and the tender folk-lyricism of his playing. “Pumpkin Seeds” and the aptly titled “A Gentle Soul” are particularly gorgeous, but best of all are the 55 breathless seconds of “Make It Easier”, a handclaps-and-guitar re-imagining of “Da Doo Ron Ron” that locks into a groove and reveals a heart full of soul.
