Devendra Banhart, Barbican Hall - music review

On a stark stage, the hippie-turned-hipster presented an intriguing pop persona combining freak-folk antics with faintly camp drama. At times, Banhart seemed startled by his own tunes
US singer and guitarist Devendra Banhart performs on the Jazz Lab stage during the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland, 14 July 2013.
EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott
Andre Paine19 July 2013

A few years after getting his hair cut Devendra Banhart has now sharpened up his songwriting too.

On a stark stage, this hippie-turned-hipster presented an intriguing pop persona combining freak-folk antics with faintly camp drama. At times, Banhart seemed startled by his own tunes.

As unlikely as it seems for someone born in Houston and raised in Venezuela and Los Angeles, Banhart is a Britpop fan.

It’s an influence he’s composted into current album Mala, particularly the jaunty croon of Won’t You Come Over and Never Seen Such Good Things, an insistently retro song that featured Banhart’s falsetto and crunching guitars from beardy Brazilian Rodrigo Amarante.

Banhart doffed his trilby after psychedelic epic Seahorse, while his whimsical side came to the fore on early single Little Yellow Spider, where he sang about a dancing crab and sexy pig in a quavering voice.

For the grown-ups in the audience, he discovered an affecting honesty on the lo-fi pop of Cristobal Risquez and the twisted break-up tune Your Fine Petting Duck, whose harmonies dissolved into the sort of thumping eurodance that could have appeared on the Pet Shop Boys’ album.

“Perfect song for an auditorium of people sitting down,” deadpanned Banhart. The encore of Carmensita soon fixed that with everyone upstanding for this singular artist’s Latin party anthem.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in