When
Devendra Banhart appeared in the early 2000s as a wooly, free-spirited troubadour, his weird and tender acoustic songs recorded on answering machine cassettes placed him perfectly in the wilderness of the freak folk movement emerging at that time. When
Banhart's recording budgets caught up with his muse, the eclecticism that had been obscured by his stripped-down arrangements came to the forefront. With the demented doo wop and classic rock celebrations of 2005's
Cripple Crow,
Banhart shed the one-dimensionality of his earlier albums, embracing a genre-fluid style that he'd revisit at times throughout the rest of his discography. Tenth album
Ma is one of the best examples of
Banhart's playful approach to songwriting, with 13 songs that cover a wide spectrum of moods, homages, and quickly shifting styles. Album opener "Is This Nice?" has the same friendly, childlike tone of some of
Banhart's earliest songs, moving from gently plucked strings and acoustic guitars into a bigger arrangement with the same mellow drift as
Harry Nilsson's most recognizable work. This breezy, upbeat style continues on standout track "Kantori Ongaku," a song rich with soft vocal harmonies and stacked guitar leads. The sweet and nostalgic "My Boyfriend's in the Band" finds
Banhart expanding on one of his best earlier songs, "At the Hop," taking that sparse tune's simple and bittersweet foundation and filling it out with rocking sax lines and a full-band rave-up. No two tracks are particularly consistent in style or presentation. The drifting "The Lost Coast" ponders meditative ambience, the dreamy torch song-styled "Will I See You Tonight?" features guest vocals by acid folk legend
Vashti Bunyan,
Cate Le Bon sings backup on the detached alien minimalism of "Now All Gone," and "Memorial" borrows directly from several
Leonard Cohen songs. While
Ma isn't the most eclectic chapter of
Banhart's work, it's an inspired and wide-reaching collection that goes all over the place without ever losing track of his restless creative vision. ~ Fred Thomas
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