Music this week

EMI

Rs 395,RATING: ****

Talk about being born in the wrong age. Neo-hippie,psychedelic freak-folk musician and singer Devendra Banhart would have felt right at home at a campfire hippie gathering on a beach in the Seventies’ San Francisco,smoking a bong and strumming and singing about altruistic bohemian ideals for fellow flower children.

Twenty-eight-year-old Banhart,who’s out with his sixth studio album What Will We Be,is as weirdly beautiful as ever with toned vibratos fused with psych-folk guitars,nylon-string arpeggios and genre-hopping tracks. His vocals fluctuate from compelling stoner songs to baritones that invoke a Morrison-ish feel with arty,whimsical lyrics. After his defining work in the 2005 record Cripple Crow,Banhart’s free-spirited,rustic trip has been explored and expanded at its best here. His revival of neo-space-rock-folk and Brazilian Tropicália is elegantly done,with guitarists Noah Georgeson and Rodrigo Amarante,drummer Greg Rogove and bassist Luckey Remington.

Glossy guitars,laidback drums and quavery vocals swoop out of the first track Can’t help but smiling. In the folksy Angelika,Banhart switches to freestyle Spanish crooning,followed by a melodious guitar juggling in Baby. Surreal progressions in Goin back move on to First song for B with sighing vocals and pensive piano ascends. Jazzy brush strokes on the drums and an alluring tenor sax in Chin Chin & Muck Muck make way for the foot-stomping 16th & Valencia Roxy Music and the shamanic Rats.

The delicate but complex arrangement of a range of instruments is what makes this hippie tick.

mohan.kumar@expressindia.com