The charming, witty, whimsical work of songwriter Devendra Banhart is often classified as “freak folk”, but that’s far too dark a descriptor for music that brims with infectious energy, hearty laughs, and bossa nova-laced grooves.

Over 9 studio albums, he’s come to define the burgeoning genre of alternative folk music: tunes that sound fresh, yet as old as the hills. He’s created a whacky, inscrutable world, with a sound that somehow blends “Axl Rose, Kurt Cobain, Mick Jagger, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Ali FarkaToure.”

It’s weird but weirdly irresistible. “Anyone who can sit down and write these many unique songs,” said one review,“ has to have something abnormally genius working inside.”

We’re delighted to welcome the abnormal genius of Devendra Banhart to China. Beijing on Sat, 9 June at YugongYishan. In the man’s own words, “you’ll never have seen such good things.”

 

Banhart first attracted international notice with his 2002 debut album, Oh Me Oh My… The Way the Day Goes By the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit—a collection of recordings he had made for himself. Subsequent albums include the more snappily titledRejoicing in the Hands (2004), Niño Rojo (2004), Cripple Crow (2005), and Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (2007), and What Will We Be (2009). Mala, his debut on Nonesuch Records, was described by Q as a "career-best" and by the Wall Street Journal as his "most concise, hushed and winsome effort to date."

 

An accomplished visual artist, Banhart's distinctive, minutely inked, often enigmatic drawings have appeared in galleries all over the world, including the Art Basel Contemporary Art Fair in Miami; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; and Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2015 Prestel published I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street, a collection of his of drawings, paintings, and mixed media pieces. He has created the cover art for most of his records, and in 2010 his artwork and packaging for What Will We Be was nominated for a Grammy.

Devendra Banhart in China. Come get crazy: Saturday 9 June 2018 at YugongYishan.