Devendra Banhart | Artist

Devendra Obi Banhart is a Venezuelan American singer-songwriter and visual artist born 1981 in Houston, Texas. Banhart was born in Texas but raised by his mother in Venezuela until he moved to California as a teenager. Banhart dropped out of art school in 2000 and travelled to Paris where he opened shows for indie bands such as Sonic Youth. Upon returned to the US in 2000 and gigging around San Francisco and Los Angeles, Banhart was discovered by Michael Gira, owner of Young God Records. Banhart and Gira compiled an album from recording fragments and released it as Oh My Oh My in 2002. The album received favourable reviews and he recorded two more albums for the label: Rejoicing in the Hands and Niño Rojo. These early releases had a simple acoustic sound but that was to change with the next album Cripple Crow which was released on the XL Recordings label and recorded at Bearsville Studios NY, with a much more elaborate sound. Banhart's music is often associated with the "Freak Folk" genre, alongside Vetiver and Joanna Newsom. SPIN magazine has written that "Banhart's albums offer ashram-appropriate guitar strums, trippy-hippie tone poetry." Critics have also compared his sound to early period Marc Bolan, in his Tyrannosaurus Rex hippie stage. Banhart has released ten albums to-date, standouts include Rejoicing in the Hands, Niño Rojo, Cripple Crow, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon and Mala. The album Mala is sung mainly in Banhart's first language Spanish. Banhart is also a member of folk-rock band Vetiver.

Artist Website: devendrabanhart.com

Featured Albums: Devendra Banhart

Related Artists: Vetiver