Thursday 25 July 2024 21:00
One of the main exponents of the psych-folk scene, Devendra Banhart is coming to Athens after 18 years, as part of his European tour, his first stop being the Stavros Niarchos Park Great Lawn. On Thursday, July 25, the artist will present songs from his entire discography, as well as from his latest album, Flying Wig, which was released in September 2023.
Devendra Banhart’s 11th solo album was recorded in its entirety in a redwood and pine-surrounded cabin studio (once owned by Neil Young), in the middle of the secluded woodland of a Topanga canyon in California. There, in an environment that was at once unfamiliar and familiar (Banhart was and still is a huge fan of Neil Young’s music), he listened again and again to vinyl records by the Grateful Dead and Brian Eno, and wrote some new songs of despair, gratitude, forgiveness and sadness, in the words of the artist. “[It] is our ability to face despair with hope, to keep on failing and loving.”
Flying Wig is a landscape of recurrent dualities, a can of paradoxes, a container of emotions that came about over the course of his 20 years of songwriting and making music. Battle-scarred by life and loss, Banhart found himself despondent, folded inwards, finding it difficult to speak, let alone sing; this resulted in the creation of an album that draws out and emphasizes the emotional aspect of the synthesizer.
Born in Texas, Banhart grew up in his mother’s homeland, Venezuela, before returning to the United States in his teens. In the summer of 2000, he dropped out of the School of Fine Arts and moved to Paris. There, he was discovered by the owner of a small night club, who chose him to open concerts of indie rock bands. All the while, Banhart was recording his own songs, some shorter and some longer ones, some simpler and some more complex ones, on the guitar or the piano.
Upon his return to the United States, at a concert at The Fold live music club in Los Angeles, Banhart met Michael Gira, the frontman of the legendary New York City-based gloom rock band Swans and owner of the Young God Records label. Banhart’s album Oh Me Oh My was released by Gira’s label in 2002, and Banhart instantly became the main representative and exponent of the freak folk scene and the so-called New Weird America movement of that time.
He has collaborated with extraordinary musicians, such as Anohni & the Johnsons and Beck, and with actor-filmmaker Gael García Bernal. His albums, including Niño Rojo and Rejoicing in the Hands, have become indie hits, equally loved by both audiences and critics.
Banhart’s psych/folk musical wave was later ridden by other bands and songwriters, such as Animal Collective and Joanna Newsom; yet Banhart remains, to this day, a musician who is hard to classify in just one musical genre. His extensive discography includes nuggets of ambient music, ’60s fuzz rock, ’80s New Wave, and Latin American Tropicália, all of which he manages to integrate into one and the same song.
Thursday 25/07, 21.00 GREAT LAWN Free admission
This event comes under a grant by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
