Wondrous and weird

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

Devenadra Banhart has always had a penchant for the far out, the wild, the weird.
On his fifth full-length album, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, that quality is as apparent as ever.
Only on this set of recordings, the West Coast freak folkie — who performs on Saturday night at Theatre of Living Arts — has found myriad tongues to help him express the bizarre.
In some cases, the 16-track album literally features songs spiked with Portuguese and Spanish lyrics.
But from start to finish, the 66-minute work wanders in and out of a half-dozen genres at least, making Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon one of Banhart’s most eclectic releases to date.
And while there is plenty of the rich and twisted folk that Banhart is known for, the album also is a maze of deviations and quirky, unexpected turns in style and sound.
Some may find Banhart’s extreme genre-hopping on the album overly eccentric, or even tiresome.
In truth, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon could probably be diced into two separate and more cohesive albums.
That, however, wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
Playing this album is akin to taking a kind of epical journey into Banhart’s mind, meandering through his sonic dreams and nightmares, only to come out the other end feeling as though there is still much more to be learned.
Released on Tuesday, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon was recorded in the storied Topanga Canyon, a locale outside Los Angeles whose walls once simultaneously reverberated with the sounds of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young warming up to their new songs.
Those origins seem to have instilled Banhart with inspiration on at least a handful of the songs featured on his new album, especially where the new-folk front man comes out with some highly rocking, 1970s-style jams.
At times, Banhart comes off as a New Age Jim Morrison, with erratic, throaty growls blending coolly with driving guitar riffs, organs and soft cymbal splashes.
One of the best examples of this is Seahorse, an eight-minute rock anthem that starts as a slow, gloriously stoned exploration of consciousness and then builds to a full-on rocker.
Lyrically, Seahorse is an almost goofy but earnest riff on reincarnation: "Well I’m scared to be born again/ if it’s in this form again." These mystical musings are shrouded in swirling, otherworldly guitar chords and eerie organ keys, a musical pairing that lifts the song into a blissful stratosphere of rock distinct to Banhart’s style.
In a whole other universe captured on Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Mountain are songs like the album’s opener, Cristobal, a delicate Spanish-language folk song that features a duet with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal and is rich on strings and melody.
That airy number is followed by the warm So Long Old Bean, where Banhart croons as Roy Orbison would if he were drenched in patchouli and wearing an Indian headdress.
What could come after that but an ultra-mellow samba sung in Portuguese, where Brazilian beats meet freak folk and indie rock?
Look later for Shabop Shalom, a Jewish-themed do-wop bit where Banhart borders on Frank Zappa-style irreverence ("Who wrote the book of Job?/ Well I did, I did.") in his disregard for serious rock-art posturing.
After slashing in a dozen dazzling directions, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon finishes out with the romantic pining of My Dearest Friend, a hushed and touching love song full of despair and decked out in plucked strings and harmony.
On this last number, famed 1960s songwriter Vashti Bunyan makes a brief but haunting contribution, joining Banhart in a velvet-soft duet as the final fragile strings fade like afternoon sunbeams.
In the end, Banhart’s genre acrobatics are strung together by the realization that, no matter what style he embraces, it is distinctly his own. ••
Banhart — by jumping into do-wop ditties and 1970s rock and soft folk ballads — also shows that he can be as versatile and talented as he is weird. ••

Check it out . . .

Who: Devendra Banhart
What: The head freak of freak folkies showing off his new set of songs.
Where: The Theater of Living Arts, Fourth and South streets in South Philly.
When: Saturday, Sept. 29, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $25.