A typically wonky and frail calling card for his just-arrived new album "Nino Rojo", "Little Yellow Spider" is no great stylistic volte-face from the fried, acid campfire strumming that made up DEVENDRA BANHART'S previous album "Rejoicing In The Hands...", though that's probably no great surprise seeing as how these songs were laid down at the same sessions.
Anyway, Devendra's slowly working his way beneath your reviewer's previously tough hide with his oddball musings, and "Little Yellow Spider" is no exception. Built shambolically around a mellifluous guitar figure, it finds our Texan hero convening with nature in his own inimitable way and coming on like a leftfield, midwestern version of the new Greenwich folkies like Jeffrey Lewis and Adam Green. "Hey there, Mr.Happy Squid, you move so psyche-delic-aleee," he swoons at one point, but the obvious love he has for this childlike whimsy and the way the strings quietly enter from stage left ensures you're left with a warm glow rather than revulsion.
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There are also two little thumbnails included as B-sides. "Sunrise - A Long Time Ago" opens with close-miked whistling and is extremely curious, but then what isn't in Devendra's shape-shifting world? Whatever, there's something distinctly sinister about the way he sings: "Sunset, sunrise, the worms are waiting" that sends the unlikeliest shiver down this spine. To close, we get (sister track?) "Autumn's Child - A Long Time Ago", which is merely a sigh really and over before it's begun.
Still, another cute and typically singular string of insights from the eccentric Mr.Banhart. His beard of stars continues to grow long and lustrous.
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