As "freak-folk" began to hit a stride last summer, Devendra Banhart's Golden Apples of the Sun compilation suggested a cogent introduction to the genre. A year later, Cripple Crow provides, in a sense, the loose-knit scene's strongest group effort to date. Banhart's fourth album isn't a compilation, nor is it billed as a group project, but he's assembled such a rich cast of cohorts here, it feels more like the fruit of community interaction than the product of a lone singer/songwriter.
The communal vibe is hinted at by the album's artwork: Rather than adorning the cover with his usual calligraphic scribbles, Banhart offers a composite photo of "The Family" (a term he often ascribes to his musical friends), gathered beneath a large knotty tree and accompanied by the disembodied heads of smiling spirits. Sgt. Pepper is the obvious point of departure, though unlike the Beatles' classic, there are no numbered silhouettes in the liner notes to decode the relative anonymity of the photo subjects. Fittingly, the only immediately recognizable figure is Banhart himself, crouching front and center, wings spread wide.
The artwork conjures Native America, an attribute Banhart seemingly alluded to in a recent email exchange, admitting that he's "a little terrified at how white most of the people are," but reassuring me that "68% of the people on the cover have Native American blood." Indeed, Banhart strives for ethnic diversity on Cripple Crow, boasting the highest concentration of Spanish-sung tracks of any of his albums (he was raised in Venezuela where Spanish was his mother tongue), and finding him moving further beyond "freak" territory and into a worldly blend of various exotic approaches. Banhart has always experimented with method and sound, but he's never before approached Cripple Crow's expertise and variety. In all its obvious details, the album not only finds Banhart coming into his own as a songwriter and performer, but suggests future directions for the 24-year-old as well.
Having started out on primitive recorders and four-track machines, Banhart only recently graduated to proper studios, and Cripple Crow further increases fidelity, possessing a warmer, more pristine quality. His vocals, too, often draped in slight reverb, are especially assured and less flaky than on previous outings. And as mentioned above, an ensemble cast showed up to back him: There's best chum Andy Cabic (aka Vetiver), Noah Georgeson (of Joanna Newsom's old rock band the Pleased, and producer of The Milk-Eyed Mender), and Thom Monohan (Pernice Brother and production whiz). The cast also includes members of Currituck Co., Espers, Yume Bitsu, The Blow, Feathers, CocoRosie, and others. Basically, it's a traveling band of hippies excited about Donovan who aren't afraid to rock.
On Oh Me Oh My's "Roots", Banhart sang, "I don't play rock 'n' roll." All that's changed. Cripple Crow features an explosion of psychedelic R&R stuffs. "Long Haired Child" maneuvers a three-pronged guitar attack-- Adam Forkner's distorted noodling, Banhart's wah-wah, and acoustic coupling-- backed with Otto Hauser's drums and Jona Bechtolt's percussion. "Lazy Butterfly" is memorable for Cabic's closely mic'd backing vocals and a tambora sheen along with hand drums and guitars. And "Little Boys", which Banhart alleges is sung from the perspective of a schizophrenic Hermaphrodite, is divided in half by a mid-song bass change-up which shifts the song up from a sorta boring Oldham prom-dance lament to its sinister, surfy refrain: "I see so many little boys I wanna marry/ I see plenty little kids I've yet to had."
Juxtaposed against a number of upbeat rock tracks, Banhart's quieter, more introspective material often makes a stronger impact. "Dragonflies", a whispered duet between Banhart and Matteah Baim of Metallic Falcons, flutters by in less than a minute with a cryptically tender lyricism. Likewise, album opener "Now That I Know" is one of his most beautiful and controlled tracks yet. It finds him backed only by cello and his own guitar, in confessional: "12 years old/ In [my] mama's clothes/ Shut the blinds and lock up every door/ And if you hear someone's coming near/ Just close your eyes it'll make 'em disappear."
Elsewhere, on "Heard Somebody Say", there's a sense of protest, with Feathers' lovely vocals adding witch-hunt background layers. Banhart gently lays down the thesis-- "Heard somebody say the war ended today/ But everybody knows it's going still"-- before winding around to the chill-inducing punchline, the easiest anti-war slogan ever: "It's simple, we don't want to kill." Later, he tries out Dylan rhyme schemes on "I Feel Just Like a Child", while "Some People Ride the Wave" is Louis Armstrong with New Orleans toy jazz ("some people write the songs that stay inside our souls"); "The Beatles" lets it be known that "Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are the only Beatles in the world" before shifting gears into Spanish; Pangea and various fertility myths are given new legs in "Chinese Children"; and endless love song "Korean Dogwood" tells as thorough an elliptical story as Banhart's tackled.
Banhart's ambition is apparent throughout, but at 22 tracks and almost 75 minutes, the album does stretch its legs too long. Though it feels like an attempt to document as thoroughly as possible his late winter retreat to Woodstock, any more experienced mystics will tell you that blanks, dissolves, gaps, and other ingredients for mystery could've made it even richer. Still, Cripple Crow is undoubtedly impressive, vastly singular but entirely accessible, and an inspired listening experience where Banhart again proves himself one of the more talented and charismatic forces in modern music.
