Flak Magazine: Devendra Banhart's Rejoicing in the Hands, 06.22.04

Troubadour Devendra Banhart — part Tiny Tim and part Nick Drake — toed the line of being off-putting on his 2002 debut, Oh Me Oh My…. His second full-length, Rejoicing in the Hands, finds Banhart still warbling poetic in a world where beards gently hold you and flames drown water (not the other way around), but the results this time captivate by beauty alone.

For modern acoustic guitar-wielding crooners, monotony lurks quickly between hushed major-chord strums. It would be easy, then, to dismiss Banhart's eccentric lyrics ("Because my teeth don't bite/ I can take them out dancing") and falsetto as gimmicks to shirk folky ennui — and it might also be accurate. But his intentions are hardly worth dissecting when the songs so innocently deliver listeners into the album's strange yet familiar world. As odd as the nonsensicals seem, they are comforting, too, like nursery rhymes and lullabies that, upon inspection, reveal subjects including the Black Death and babies falling out of trees.

Such childhood tunes soothe regardless of content, and Rejoicing charms because Banhart rarely lets on that he's even aware of how little sense he's making. In the album's opener, "This Is the Way," Banhart sings:

This is the soup that I believe in.
This is the smoke I'm always breathing.
This is the way I share my breakfast.
This is the way I serve my sentence...
This is the sound that swims inside me.
That circle sound is what surrounds me.
This is the land that grows around me.
And these are the hands that come in handy.

With Banhart's gently assuring voice, this quirky litany instantly convinces. Soup? Yes, I believe in it, too. Stating the peculiar as if true: this is the way he suspends our disbelief.

He doesn't always need to, though, because Rejoicing has little to do with (il)logic. While this bard's music can't be accurately described without "strange" and its many synonyms, it also can't escape the tag of sincerity. The caressing beards and dancing teeth are mere cover-ups for the melancholy that colors almost every pluck and whisper. Being a rational grown-up is plain tiring; Rejoicing is a respite, a world created with the very double-faced emotions from which we want to escape in the first place. Here, though, heartbreak is made palatable. What are gaping emotional wounds if not fodder for tragic and pretty folk songs? Take "The Body Breaks," one of many exquisite moments of heartfelt clarity. Over a delicate guitar melody, Banhart's voice plaintively cracks and coos,

The body breaks
And the body is fine...
The body aches
And that ache takes its time
But you'll get over yours
And I'll get over mine...
Within the dark, there is a shine
One tiny spark that's yours and mine.

This bare unselfconsciousness is present throughout all of Rejoicing's 16 tracks (another 16 will be released later this year as Nino Rojo), imparting the album's general poignant sadness. Still, there are glimpses of lighter moods. The silly "Todo Los Dolores" features Banhart laughing at himself and dramatically rolling the "r" in "Peter Pan"; "This Beard Is for Siobhan" has him singing lines like "The daughter of a man was a mammal"; and the gently lilting title track co-stars quasi-legendary folkie Vashti Bunyan sounding cheerful as ever.

However tinged with woe or its antithesis, Banhart ceaselessly entrances with his brilliant combination of John Fahey-esque pickings, absurd and sometimes profoundly resonating lyrics and the craft to convey both kinds with equal candor. Such is the magic of Banhart's sleight, wherein even the sound of a falling baby can be made most beautiful.

— Lavina Lee (lavina at flakmag dot com)