Recorded in Topanga Canyon in the Santa Monica mountains. Neil Young lived there while recording "After The Gold Rush" and the area has also been home to Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, Joni Mitchell, Mick Fleetwood, and members of The Doors. Those ghosts inhabit the sound and vibe of these recording sessions. Banhart's whole "freak folk" tag is gone, replaced with this classic, gorgeous rock album. Some songs are fragile and solipsistic, others have a pronounced tropicalia influence, and still others are wildly electric and epic.
Review by John Bush
In the early days of Devendra Banhart's career, his ghostly voice singing down the phone and captured on four track was more than enough to lend the eerie mysticism required for his nonsensical material (of course, it didn't hurt that his voice was bewitching no matter the lyrical content). As he gradually acquired confederates and the ability to record in studios, the clear problem was going to be retaining that same ghostly personality that made his early recordings so special. Decamped to a woodsy compound nestled in Topanga Canyon, and an enterprising home studio built within, manned by early champion Noah Georgeson, Banhart has weathered the storm of accessibility very well. Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon is many things -- perhaps too many things, but its successes outnumber its failures, and it essentially solves the problems inherent in confining a free-form singer to time signatures and arrangements and rhythms imposed by outsiders. It's also a success in that it finds him more comfortable within those confines than 2005's Cripple Crow, his first full-band record. Of the many things Smokey Rolls is, first of all it's his White Album, as he marshals his many influences into a mural of closely drawn portraits, whether it's Victor Jara on the opener, "Cristobal," Gilberto Gil on the deep polyrhythms of "Samba Vexillographica," Jewish wedding music and Borscht Belt comedy in equal measure on "Shabop Shalom," or, in the oddest combination, Dave Brubeck and Grand Funk (separately, not together) on the eight-minute "Sea Horse" (with backing vocals from another influence, the winsome Vashti Bunyan). The album is also his Blue -- Joni Mitchell's Blue, that is -- with several songs dedicated to the destruction of a relationship, with poignant lyrics ("Mama, I ain't waiting but I'm still holdin on"). As an aside, given the cast of "bearded bums" present, Smokey Rolls is also his Absolutely Free and, given his representation by Neil Young manager Elliot Roberts, it must be his After the Gold Rush. Certainly, his surreal life continues to yield more material -- consider the inspiration of becoming lost with friends in the Orinoco basin until a stork lands and immediately leads them far into the jungle to a tribe of yopo-snorters ("Tonada Yanomaminista"). And, amid the trippy songs and confessional singer/songwriter material, there's yet more evidence of Banhart's continuing musical idiosyncrasies: "Saved," which comes complete with a gospel choir, has the production mark of the late '70s (but not in a good way), while "Lover" is a surprisingly funky fusion of soul and pop, like Jackson 5 with a backing group of Archie Bell & the Drells plus the Manson Family on vocals. Continually beguiling and fascinating, even as he leaves his four-track days farther behind, it's clear that Devendra Banhart has much more ground to plow.
Devendra Banhart
Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
[XL; 2007]
Rating: 6.5
In the age of computerized music-listening, calling an album "too long"-- a dubious complaint even two decades ago, when CDs first made track-skipping simpler-- seems absurdly outdated. After all, it's easy enough to make an iTunes playlist of a record's best songs, right? So I don't get it when people call Devendra Banhart's albums too long. Not only is that problem easy to rectify, but his rambling style needs room to breathe, and space to wander toward its inspirations. Banhart's valleys have rarely diminished his peaks, and often provided ramps to them.
But after spending time with the 16-track, 66-minute Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, I'm starting to understand. It's not so much that the quality varies, but that a bloated, lethargic feel permeates the record. Banhart has too much skill and creativity not to hit on something good when given 16 chances to do so. But in the context of the album, even the best pieces sag, bathed in a blurry haze that bleeds over from other songs. And it's hard to shake the feeling that the highlights would've been brighter given the extra time and attention they were deprived of by the lows.
The easiest fix would have been for Banhart to restrict his tiresome love of genres. This cloying infatuation pops up on all of his albums, but he usually keeps it to a minimum, and often tweaks the clichés of the styles he apes. But more than one-third of Smokey consists of indistinct genre exercises. There's a flat Samba piece ("Samba Vexillographica"), a middling Reggae jaunt ("The Other Woman"), a weak Motown rip ("Lover"), and a sub-Santana Spanish rocker ("Carmencita"). Worst of all is "Shabop Shalom", a Jewish love song done in doo-wop style and filled with painful couplets ("When I'm ever in a foul mood/ I've gotta see you in your Talmud"). Banhart labors to distinguish these tunes with his stellar voice, but they remain stubbornly forgettable. Only "Seahorse", a classic-rock epic that's sort of Banhart's "Layla", rises far above mimicry, but even it doesn't make any moves that you can't see coming.
Smokey does have a handful of songs that capture Banhart's idiosyncratic mix of odd folk and warbling emotion. For the most part, this happens when he keeps things simple: Opener "Cristobal" is a modest tune with a worm-like melody, while "Tonada Yanomaminista" is energetic and sharp, practically caffeinated compared to the sluggishness around it. Even better is "Bad Girl", whose gentleness is hypnotic rather than sleepy, much the way the slower shuffles on Stephen Malkmus' solo albums find tension in patient strolls. Over small slide guitar and pitter-pat percussion, Banhart's tale of romantic ambivalence is achingly pretty.
Similar simplicity bolsters the album's end. The Gordon Lightfoot-esque soft rocker "Freely" benefits from a nice Banhart vocal turn, while the wistful piano and voice of "I Remember" feels like an update of "Autumn's Child" from 2004's Rejoicing in the Hands. Best is the final cut, "My Dearest Friend." As Banhart bemoans how he will "die from loneliness," the track does the opposite, gaining strength from its unadorned setting and lack of heavy effects, indulgent flourishes, or winking genre baggage. It's a strong way to close Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, but an even stronger reminder of how much better Banhart can be.
-Marc Masters, September 21, 2007
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