The full title of this album is Oh Me Oh My the Way the Day Goes By the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit. This sums up singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart reasonably well, demonstrating as it does an engagingly whimsical imagination, an evocative turn of phrase and a vast capacity to irritate. There are moments on Oh Me Oh My? which will have the listener drawing appreciative comparisons with Syd Barret and Elliot Smith, and there are hours during which you'll want to swat Banhart with his own guitar. What Banhart really needs is a good editor. When he's good, as on the sombre and pretty "Animals" and "Cosmos and Demos", he radiates a downbeat charm that suits his lo-fi approach to recording perfectly. When he's bad, as on the laboured, wilfully annoying avant-garde nonsense--unhappily reminiscent of Vic Chestnutt at his least agreeable--that constitutes too much of the rest of the album, he's unlistenable. On Oh Me Oh My?, the balance is just about on the credit side of the ledger. --Andrew Mueller
Devendra Banhart
Oh Me Oh My...
[Young God; 2002]
Rating: 7.8
He possesses a warble I won't soon forget, and if that isn't the mark of a classic balladeer I don't know what is-- except that he can paint a wild picture of slow snails, cold snow, the Charles C. Leary, and very nice people. There are probably thousands of nomadic, dark troubadours who would stumble upon some surrealist notion of wisdom if given the time and the audience, but 21-year-old Devendra Banhart draws ellipses around more than mere romantic, hard travails and etched self-portraits. In short, he isn't your everyday, everyman's folk singer, though folk aficionados would do well to weird themselves out every once in awhile with his stuff.
Banhart's debut release for Michael Gira's Young God label is the work of someone presumably half-awake to conventions like "professional recordings" but fully aware of his own idiosyncrasies even as he performs without much trace of pretension or self-conscious nuance. The music on Oh Me Oh My is rarely more than an uncluttered combination of his unorthodox acoustic guitar pickings, more than a little tape hiss, and his immediately recognizable tenor. Banhart's voice might be a cross of Tim Buckley's flutter, Marc Bolan's timbre, and Tiny Tim's vibrato, but I would be hard pressed to claim he was imitating anyone. Similarly, his songs hit like sea chanteys started by Syd Barrett and then left mysteriously half-finished. In some cases, this is frustrating, but for the most part it seems bizarrely fitting.
Banhart does share a link with traditional minstrels in the instances he opts for epic tragedy. "Soon Is Good", one of the longer tracks here (the shortest being all of 39 seconds), could be about the buried pain of a lost love, though the typically half-nonsensical lyrics are tough to decipher. Fortunately, the solemn, but not quite melancholy, guitar figures are uplifting enough to support Banhart's odd mumble. Later, he drops lines like, "My toes have my favorite feet," in "Michigan State" over understated, optimistic guitar accompaniment, and somehow comes off like a weathered road-poet.
Elsewhere, the songs can range from whimsical to slightly crazed. "Lend Me Your Teeth" stops just short of being a novelty number, perhaps due to the fact that Banhart keeps his yelp in check for most of it-- only leaping into whistle-warble territory for a brief stretch. "Nice People" may be the spookiest song on the album, beginning with ominous strumming, only to explode into a chorus of witchy Devendras repeating "they certainly are nice people!" There are moments on Oh Me Oh My that seem as if I'm overhearing a private sketch rather than a performance. Over the course of the CD, that might translate to ambience for some and annoyance for others.
And the idea of a personal sketch might have been the idea all along: none of the music here was meant for release, but merely Banhart's collection of home and road tapings. It's possible that his voice would resonate more clearly with the aid of a good mic and decent mix, but that could very well detract from the considerable intimacy of his sound. If part of a folk singer's power comes from the purity of his conviction, then Banhart's promising debut is the sign of someone destined for great, strange things.
-Dominique Leone, November 6th, 2002
Review by Jason MacNeil
The first thing that strikes you about Devendra Banhart is his utterly unique and soft voice, which seems a mix of Nick Drake and Marc Bolan. "Roots (If the Sky Were a Stone)" is a perfect example of this, as Banhart uses his vocals and an acoustic guitar to get his brief yet often memorable points across. Originally recorded on shoddy and broken four-track recorders, the songs have a definitive roughness and audible hiss on nearly all of them, giving them a certain authenticity rarely found. Cars can be heard driving past in "The Charles C. Leary," but that performance is only one of the many highlights here. A number of the tracks are less than or just over one minute in length, often stream-of-conscious poetry put to music. The fragility heard in "Nice People" resembles Victoria Williams but evolves into a Syd Barrett song structure, speaking of "wide ass suits and lion tattoos." Barrett can be discerned throughout the record, especially during "Gentle Soul." "Cosmos and Demos" lends itself more toward Pink Floyd performing something from Echoes, perhaps the acoustic-oriented "Fearless." Lyrically the songs are quite odd and occasionally nonsensical, particularly "Michigan State." Here Banhart speaks of a friend who has his favorite teeth and ears. Perhaps comparisons could be drawn to Hawksley Workman and Hayden to a lesser extent, but Banhart makes both artists sound bland in comparison. "Lend Me Your Teeth" is the most mainstream-structured arrangement, with Banhart showing a bit more intensity. The standout track would have to be "Miss Cain," which has a pretty harmony vocal to it as Banhart picks his guitar in a rather intricate fashion. "Soon Is Good" is the most promising track, but the sound levels tend to fluctuate from verse to verse. An almost ethereal and angelic performance compensates for its shortcomings, though. A lot of the songs appear to be not fully realized, but perhaps that's the beauty of them. When tracks like "Pumpkin Seeds" are entirely flushed out, it's pure magic as the acoustic folk angle is played out to near perfection. "Legless Love" has a handclap tempo to it that resembles a flamenco style as Banhart describes burying songs in snails. Throughout the record, Banhart is never guilty of being artistic just for the sake of being artistic. Each track rings true and can't be deemed contrived. "Donal and Colter" is the most up-tempo song, but even then it's still mid-tempo at best.
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