Yo sí oigo | Devendra Banhart’s Influences
March 2, 2007
(Tracklist below)
This compilation has been culminating for quite some time. In fact, long before I had ever even heard of Devendra Banhart. It wasn’t until after I heard Oh me Oh my… for the first time and realized that it was still possible for an artist to tap into what I thought had been lost long ago. I heard the ghosts of my favorite artists echoing through Devendra’s lips and creaky wooden bellows. He took me by surprise and has yet to let go. I was enveloped and lost in a nostalgic cave of the music past until I ran into Devendra, whose voice came over me like uncovering an alcove of bats. Disturbing one by accident and having the rest wake and scream past you with blood curdling screeches. I was awake. My first thought, I have an artist to be proud of from my generation. My second, I said aloud to Devendra when I first met him, “Thank you for singlehandedly restoring my faith in music.” I meant to say modern music, but on reflection I think I meant what I said. So without further ado, I bring to you the musicians who helped bring Devendra to light.
Click to download:
Yo sí oigo | Devendra Banhart’s Influences
Download mirror 2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V721CIH1
*A brief little update/response to this after I received an e-mail which said the following:
E-mail:
I enjoyed the c.d but was wondering whether it is strictly a cd of influences and more a collection of interesting historical parallels to Devendra’s music. Whilst I know Devendra raves about Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes music, I remember reading an interview a while back where he said that he’d not heard the early Tryannoasurus Rex music when he started making music the way that he became famous for. Probably not that important either way but I thought I might bring up the point…On another note, often times what actually shapes people is a little embarassing to admit in public..
My reply:
Haha, no no.. it’s fine, that’s what I was going for. I didn’t merely want to make a collection of artists songs that he explicitly stated influenced him (A difficult task in itself as he often only cites nature). I wanted to include artists of whom he shared sonic similarities with. I thought it would make for a more interesting listen if I paralleled his sound with artists from nearly every decade since the 20’s because that’s what I heard in his music (whether or not he had actually heard the artists or not). As Devendra sings on Cripple Crow… Yo si oigo marc bolan… he may not have heard his music before but realized that he is definitely tapping into something similar.
