Stream: Devendra Banhart, “Baby”

story Sam Hockley-Smith
photo Tearney Gearon (F48)

New Devendra and it is totally not weird! When did this guy become not weird? Was it when he dated Natalie Portman or before that, when he started singing a little less like a gnome? To clarify, we liked the gnome stuff, we like the dick-skirted Beefheart-y Megapuss and we like this new song “Baby.” What is weird is to realize Devendra is on a major label and that doesn’t seem weird, and what’s even weirder about that not seeming weird is that it sounds right. Devendra shaved his beard off recently and with it his romance for the old days of Topanga Canyon, though he sounds kind of old here. He’s seen music go in cycles, coming in on a wave of bands copping to the same influences and inspiring the next wave of coastal bohemia. He’s seen Joanna Newsom date Andy Samburg. What the hell is this album going to sound like? If the rest of it bops along in the same way this track does, either Devendra has avoided the epic bummer that has been the last couple years or is facing it by getting back to basics.

Stream: Devendra Banhart, “Babies” (via P4K)