#16 Devendra Banhart – Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

Back in ‘05 when the staff at Magnet Magazine didn’t have stilted taste – now fawning over every other Robert Pollard release, counting Trail of Dead’s last mistep as calculated brilliance, and debasing themselves with Hold Steady at number one – their end-of-year recommendations opened up my musical palate to some of the best music I hadn’t heard yet. It was at a time when I was still hoarding burns from friends and, as of yet, had no grasp on the whole underground culture enough to discern my own taste. Of those Magnet endorsements – a slew of greats like The National, Black Mountain, Constantines, Black Rebel Motorcylce Club, M. Ward, Sleater-Kinney – the single most eye-opening and lasting musican they introduced me to was Devendra Banhart. After gorging myself on Banhart’s opus Cripple Crow that affirmed an exponential growth on his part from four-track bedroom auteur to eclectic gypsy-folk shaman, I was determined to try and weasel my way into an interview with this guy if I could for his latest magnum Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. Sadly, that never came to pass, and amidst a circle of frowns from critics who basically circumvented Smokey as “too long” and divergent in its genre-hopping, I was prepared to accept that Banhart had, perhaps, tumbled a ways down his mountain of distinction. Honestly, who could follow up a feat like Cripple that I can’t help but feel may be one of the great records of the decade? After inching my way, one careful listen after another, through its myriad motifs and homage varietals, snaking between cabana chanteys, soul-sister revivals and Jewish doo-wop love tunes with ease, all brought into unison with Banhart’s poly-flex throat calls and soft-spoken meditations, Smokey is as forward-looking an album as possible. One glaring defect that I haven’t been able to place, though, is the low-toned production by otherwise reliable compatriot Noah Georgeson that muddles Banhart’s wildhorse whims. Whereas ’04’s twin albums Rejoicing In The Hands/Niño Rojo reveled in its splintered acoustics and vacant haunts – even Georgeson’s precise elocution of Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender was flawless – this album does feel a little … smokey. Regrettably, that palor never seems to lift and reduces to near soft rock what should be a visceral clamor. That doesn’t impugn obvious stand-outs like “Seahorse” from easily being one of Banhart’s better songs, or “Tonada Yanomaninista” from breaking form with a tousled rock-out, or, actually, any of its 16 tracks spanning nearly an hour’s worth of material from losing their unorthodox piquancy. During Banhart’s Nashville show at City Hall in October, I have to say I felt these same reservations as I stood alone in a crowd of wish-they’d-been-there Deadheads, Latina samba couples and pubescent press with cameras. The air felt oddly dry. But as Banhart suddenly loosed himself on stage, belting out with a third-world spirtual relish, “I’m scared of ever being born again/ If it’s in this form again,” an expectant shiver coursed down my neck. When looking back, that may have been the most awe-struck I’ve been at a show, affirming my belief in Devendra Banhart as one of this generation’s best songwriters and that Smokey, for all its flaws, is a cherished shrine of his, perpetually decorated with as much care as any of his deserving children.