Sunday, December 20, 2009

Love & Happiness.

The Albums: 2009.



15/Devendra Banhart/What Will Be

Once under the radar quirk-folk troubadour goes big, signs to a major label, and I wonder What Will Be.

A house, a home, in Northern California, alone to record What Will Be.

With the gang, all back from before, to flesh out What Will Be.

The end result? Simply gorgeous. Warm, pacifying, and serene.14 Tracks of melancholia, clarity, and peace.

Plush, mellow, occasionally rollicking…This is What Will Be.

Devendra Banhart’s sixth studio album, steeped in all we’ve come to expect of him, that aforementioned quirk and tranquility. Contained within, it’s all here, contained in What Will Be.

Like chestnuts roasting on an open fire, the warmth abounds and overtakes you as guitars gently weep, and Devendra ruminates on “goin back to a place when he didn’t need a thing, just the tappin of his feet and a little song to sing. Just like old times”, here on What Will Be.

The Beach Boys bass-guitar-toe-tappin’ bounce of Baby, the tropicalia jazz soaked tinge of Chin Chin and Muk Muk, as well as the sun drenched tropicalia of the album’s brief gem of an opener Can’t Help But Smiling. Or the thick and heavy five minute stomp through the unpredictable terrain of courting and being in “like” on funky track number nine, Rats.

Take your pick, it’s all here, contained in What Will Be.

Devendra Banhart’s sixth studio album, steeped in all we’ve come to expect of him.

Plush, mellow, occasionally rollicking…This is What Will Be.

KEY TRACKS: Can't Help But Smiling/Baby/16th & Valencia Roxy Music

  • 16/Grizzly Bear/Veckatimest


  • 17/Chester French/Love the Future


  • 18/Jay-Z/The Blueprint 3


  • 19/Discovery/LP


  • 20/Mariah Carey/Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel


  • 21/Franz Ferdinand/Tonight: Franz Ferdinand


  • 22/Peter Bjorn And John/Living Thing


  • 23/Peaches/I Feel Cream


  • 24/Karen O and The Kids/Where the Wild Things Are Motion Picture Soundtrack


  • 25/Tegan and Sara/Sainthood

  • No comments: