NAME:
Devendra Banhart
ABOUT
The simply titled Ma is Devendra Banhart’s third for Nonesuch, one that addresses—often in a beguilingly oblique way—the unconditional nature of maternal love, the desire to nurture, the passing down of wisdom, the longing to establish the relationship of mother to child, and what happens when that bond gets broken.
“Ma is dedicated to motherhood,” explains Banhart. “The title of the album comes from the realization that the word ‘Ma’ is a very good candidate for our first utterance and our very last whisper; the word itself means ‘Mother’ in countless languages.”
Banhart doesn’t approach his theme in a literal way; rather, by contemplating it, eluding to it, regarding the concept of motherhood from different angles, he has fashioned an album of multiple, intertwining narratives. Its concerns are both personal and global, with subtly autobiographical looks at life and death and ruminations about the precarious state of the world. The lighthearted moments of Ma are balanced by deeply melancholic, even somber ones. “Love Song” may be exactly what it purports to be: a gentle and beautiful love song, while “Ami,” named after the eight-armed Hindu goddess Ambika, could be about a mother offering advice to a child. In this case, the life lessons are both metaphorical and drawn from experience: “You’ve got to keep on playing,” Banhart opines, “even if nobody comes to the show.”
“I am in stage of my life when all of my closest friends are parents and I am not and I may not be,” Banhart explains. “So this is kind of everything I would say to a child. If I don’t have one, I have made a record where I would have said everything I wanted to say.”
For Ma, Banhart traded in the synths of his previous album in favor of human-made sounds to accompany his voice and guitar, the arrangements bolstered by strings, woodwinds, brass, and keyboards. The sound is warmer and more intimate, as befits these conjured-up dialogues between a parent and child. Once again, Banhart works with Grammy Award–winning producer-musician Noah Georgeson. The two started this particular musical journey when they were invited to record in a special room at a venerable old temple in Kyoto, after a short Asian tour. That served as a musical and spiritual prelude to what was to come. The project began in earnest once they were back in California. They cut tracks at 64 Sound and Seahorse Studios in Los Angeles, Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, and Anderson Canyon in Big Sur.
Singer-songwriter Cate LeBon contributes background vocals on “Now All Gone” and Banhart’s mentor, muse, and dear friend, the folk legend Vashti Bunyan, duets with him on “Will I See You Tonight.” Banhart says, “Vashti is the archetype of the mother, one of the most important people in my life. It was so beautiful to sing this duet with her.”
Georgeson would often bring his son to their sessions and that, says Banhart, became another source of inspiration: “Noah’s son was there every day, especially when we went up north. And that influence was such a part of the record, to observe that relationship. I’m like his godfather. There was that feeling of this creature you love so much, it’s just amazing. For my friends with
kids, as I watch them, it’s a twenty-four hour a day thing. For me, I can hang around, be the auntie I always wanted to be, then go home and write about it.”
Three tracks are in Spanish, the language that is as much Banhart’s native tongue as English. He was born in Houston, Texas and raised in Venezuela; his family returned to the states, moving to Los Angeles, when he was a teenager. He jokes, “On the last record, there weren’t any Spanish songs, so I had to make up for it.”
However, Banhart doesn’t limit himself to just two languages on Ma, which is not surprising: An inveterate traveler, Banhart may be at his Echo Park home one day then on a Nepalese mountaintop the next; he tours regularly in Asia and South America. On “Kantori Ongaku,” he sings the chorus in Japanese, referencing lyrics from the Japanese experimental pop legend Haruomi Hosono, a founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra. He performs “Carolina” in Portuguese, though he wryly notes at the end of the song, “I should learn Portuguese someday.” Even without understanding the languages, one can simply appreciate these songs for their innate tenderness and sensuality, for the very sound of Banhart’s voice as he savors these words, and for the feeling he brings to them.
Banhart does offer an explanation for “Carolina,” which is a Russian Doll of an idea that circles back to his central theme: “‘Carolina’ is about a Brazilian song called ‘Carolina.’ It’s a Chico Buarque song, but Caetano Veloso did the most beautiful version of it. ‘Carolina’ is a song to a song, about the mothering quality of music in our lives. It’s a thank-you to the mothering nature of music.”
The Spanish language “October 12” offers some of the more nakedly emotional moments on the album; the title references the untimely passing of a friend. Mourning also figures on “Memorial,” which partially addresses the passing of Banhart’s father and its enduring after-effects; on “Kantori Ongaku,” which pairs apocalyptic lyrics with a subversively upbeat melody; and on “The Lost Coast,” perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful moment on Ma, its lyrics spare and unusually specific about death and loss.
Banhart’s concern over the dire situation in his motherland of Venezuela drew him back to the Spanish language: “My brother is in Venezuela, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. They are just holding their breath, in gridlock standstill. Maybe there is more Spanish writing because of the helplessness I’m feeling, it’s on my mind more than ever. I was thinking about the sorrow of having to put a child up for adoption, loving that child but not being with them, for whatever reason. That child is out in the world and you have to love them from afar. And that is exactly how I have felt observing the situation in Venezuela. There’s this helplessness, this place that has been a mother to you, that you’re a mother to as well, and it’s suffering so much. There is nothing you can do but send out love and remain in that sorrowful state.
“The government has put up walls to any type of aid except through some very grassroots ways of getting it in,” he continues. “Which I actually did. We had a fundraiser, we bought medicine, we had my cousin take it to the hospital and he was still stopped by the police. It’s now an international story but it’s been the experience of my entire life. The situation was always bad
but now it’s in a beyond-critical place, where the world is finally noticing and hopefully going to intervene. I was there two years ago and it’s all real—the long, long lines, people going through garbage, the tensions, the violence, the aggression and the fear. But there’s love at the same time because Venezuelans are banding together against the military. And here I am observing it from afar and there’s that feeling, my mother, my child, and I cannot reach them.”
However, Banhart is taking action. For his autumn tour in support of Ma, he’s partnering with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold in the U.S. will go to World Central Kitchen (WCK), an organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize–nominated chef José Andrés to fight hunger around the world. WCK is currently responding to the crisis on the Colombia-Venezuelan border and has served more than 350,000 meals to date.
In 2015, when Banhart published a book of drawing and photographs called I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street, a New York Times critic declared, “Devendra Banhart is exactly the sort of person for whom the term ‘multihyphenate’ was coined…for the last 15 years or so, he has been steadily building, and occasionally exhibiting, a parallel body of work around drawings, paintings and, more recently, photography.” Banhart’s intricate, often whimsical drawings have always served as album covers; Ma features, for the first time, one of Banhart's paintings on the cover..
This spring, Banhart marked another milestone, releasing his first book of poetry, Weeping Gang, Bliss Void, Yab Yum, published by Featherproof Books. In addition, a book of his ink drawings entitled Vanishing Wave, created in response to his travels in Japan shortly after the Tohoku earthquake, was published in April by Anteism Books. An LP of various musicians’ rare and previously unheard demos that Banhart curated, Fragments du Monde Flottant, was released in March, and a limited-edition collaboration with Brooklyn clothing designer Alex Crane, Almas, featuring Banhart’s drawings on Crane’s tropical paradise-ready linen shirts and pants, launched in April as well.
—Michael Hill
Expand“Ma is dedicated to motherhood,” explains Banhart. “The title of the album comes from the realization that the word ‘Ma’ is a very good candidate for our first utterance and our very last whisper; the word itself means ‘Mother’ in countless languages.”
Banhart doesn’t approach his theme in a literal way; rather, by contemplating it, eluding to it, regarding the concept of motherhood from different angles, he has fashioned an album of multiple, intertwining narratives. Its concerns are both personal and global, with subtly autobiographical looks at life and death and ruminations about the precarious state of the world. The lighthearted moments of Ma are balanced by deeply melancholic, even somber ones. “Love Song” may be exactly what it purports to be: a gentle and beautiful love song, while “Ami,” named after the eight-armed Hindu goddess Ambika, could be about a mother offering advice to a child. In this case, the life lessons are both metaphorical and drawn from experience: “You’ve got to keep on playing,” Banhart opines, “even if nobody comes to the show.”
“I am in stage of my life when all of my closest friends are parents and I am not and I may not be,” Banhart explains. “So this is kind of everything I would say to a child. If I don’t have one, I have made a record where I would have said everything I wanted to say.”
For Ma, Banhart traded in the synths of his previous album in favor of human-made sounds to accompany his voice and guitar, the arrangements bolstered by strings, woodwinds, brass, and keyboards. The sound is warmer and more intimate, as befits these conjured-up dialogues between a parent and child. Once again, Banhart works with Grammy Award–winning producer-musician Noah Georgeson. The two started this particular musical journey when they were invited to record in a special room at a venerable old temple in Kyoto, after a short Asian tour. That served as a musical and spiritual prelude to what was to come. The project began in earnest once they were back in California. They cut tracks at 64 Sound and Seahorse Studios in Los Angeles, Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, and Anderson Canyon in Big Sur.
Singer-songwriter Cate LeBon contributes background vocals on “Now All Gone” and Banhart’s mentor, muse, and dear friend, the folk legend Vashti Bunyan, duets with him on “Will I See You Tonight.” Banhart says, “Vashti is the archetype of the mother, one of the most important people in my life. It was so beautiful to sing this duet with her.”
Georgeson would often bring his son to their sessions and that, says Banhart, became another source of inspiration: “Noah’s son was there every day, especially when we went up north. And that influence was such a part of the record, to observe that relationship. I’m like his godfather. There was that feeling of this creature you love so much, it’s just amazing. For my friends with
kids, as I watch them, it’s a twenty-four hour a day thing. For me, I can hang around, be the auntie I always wanted to be, then go home and write about it.”
Three tracks are in Spanish, the language that is as much Banhart’s native tongue as English. He was born in Houston, Texas and raised in Venezuela; his family returned to the states, moving to Los Angeles, when he was a teenager. He jokes, “On the last record, there weren’t any Spanish songs, so I had to make up for it.”
However, Banhart doesn’t limit himself to just two languages on Ma, which is not surprising: An inveterate traveler, Banhart may be at his Echo Park home one day then on a Nepalese mountaintop the next; he tours regularly in Asia and South America. On “Kantori Ongaku,” he sings the chorus in Japanese, referencing lyrics from the Japanese experimental pop legend Haruomi Hosono, a founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra. He performs “Carolina” in Portuguese, though he wryly notes at the end of the song, “I should learn Portuguese someday.” Even without understanding the languages, one can simply appreciate these songs for their innate tenderness and sensuality, for the very sound of Banhart’s voice as he savors these words, and for the feeling he brings to them.
Banhart does offer an explanation for “Carolina,” which is a Russian Doll of an idea that circles back to his central theme: “‘Carolina’ is about a Brazilian song called ‘Carolina.’ It’s a Chico Buarque song, but Caetano Veloso did the most beautiful version of it. ‘Carolina’ is a song to a song, about the mothering quality of music in our lives. It’s a thank-you to the mothering nature of music.”
The Spanish language “October 12” offers some of the more nakedly emotional moments on the album; the title references the untimely passing of a friend. Mourning also figures on “Memorial,” which partially addresses the passing of Banhart’s father and its enduring after-effects; on “Kantori Ongaku,” which pairs apocalyptic lyrics with a subversively upbeat melody; and on “The Lost Coast,” perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful moment on Ma, its lyrics spare and unusually specific about death and loss.
Banhart’s concern over the dire situation in his motherland of Venezuela drew him back to the Spanish language: “My brother is in Venezuela, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. They are just holding their breath, in gridlock standstill. Maybe there is more Spanish writing because of the helplessness I’m feeling, it’s on my mind more than ever. I was thinking about the sorrow of having to put a child up for adoption, loving that child but not being with them, for whatever reason. That child is out in the world and you have to love them from afar. And that is exactly how I have felt observing the situation in Venezuela. There’s this helplessness, this place that has been a mother to you, that you’re a mother to as well, and it’s suffering so much. There is nothing you can do but send out love and remain in that sorrowful state.
“The government has put up walls to any type of aid except through some very grassroots ways of getting it in,” he continues. “Which I actually did. We had a fundraiser, we bought medicine, we had my cousin take it to the hospital and he was still stopped by the police. It’s now an international story but it’s been the experience of my entire life. The situation was always bad
but now it’s in a beyond-critical place, where the world is finally noticing and hopefully going to intervene. I was there two years ago and it’s all real—the long, long lines, people going through garbage, the tensions, the violence, the aggression and the fear. But there’s love at the same time because Venezuelans are banding together against the military. And here I am observing it from afar and there’s that feeling, my mother, my child, and I cannot reach them.”
However, Banhart is taking action. For his autumn tour in support of Ma, he’s partnering with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket sold in the U.S. will go to World Central Kitchen (WCK), an organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize–nominated chef José Andrés to fight hunger around the world. WCK is currently responding to the crisis on the Colombia-Venezuelan border and has served more than 350,000 meals to date.
In 2015, when Banhart published a book of drawing and photographs called I Left My Noodle on Ramen Street, a New York Times critic declared, “Devendra Banhart is exactly the sort of person for whom the term ‘multihyphenate’ was coined…for the last 15 years or so, he has been steadily building, and occasionally exhibiting, a parallel body of work around drawings, paintings and, more recently, photography.” Banhart’s intricate, often whimsical drawings have always served as album covers; Ma features, for the first time, one of Banhart's paintings on the cover..
This spring, Banhart marked another milestone, releasing his first book of poetry, Weeping Gang, Bliss Void, Yab Yum, published by Featherproof Books. In addition, a book of his ink drawings entitled Vanishing Wave, created in response to his travels in Japan shortly after the Tohoku earthquake, was published in April by Anteism Books. An LP of various musicians’ rare and previously unheard demos that Banhart curated, Fragments du Monde Flottant, was released in March, and a limited-edition collaboration with Brooklyn clothing designer Alex Crane, Almas, featuring Banhart’s drawings on Crane’s tropical paradise-ready linen shirts and pants, launched in April as well.
—Michael Hill