Cripple Crow

Cripple Crow

The 23-year old pied piper of the Freaky Folk movement, San Francisco-based Devendra Banhart mixes and matches musical styles at will. This sprawling 22-song collection, his fourth studio album, is a happily eclectic mix of folk, blues, and reggae, with violins, sitars, flutes, and cellos coloring Banhart’s majestic world. Recorded in three weeks in March of 2005, Cripple Crow reflects the sounds of an emerging Spring with its fluid acoustic guitars and bucolic flutes underpinning the laid-back vibe of “Pensanda Enti” and flowing rhythms of “Now That I Know,” while “Long Haired Child” is still spooked by winter’s vicious chill and a haunted vibrato-drenched vocal from Banhart. A bevy of guest musicians from other free-spirited acts – Espers, Queens of Sheba, and Vetiver – lends the album a communal vibe best expressed in the album’s many choral-like backing vocals. “Hey Mama Wolf” could be a children’s tune for the new millennium, and “Chinese Children” is a silly three-chord sing-along romp. It’s the sound of people sitting around a campfire enjoying the moment.

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