Oh Me Oh My...

VINYL FORMAT. "To say Devendra is unique is an absurd understatement. When I first heard his voice I could not believe it. His occasionally warbling falsetto is alternately bizarre, soulful, comical, gentle, and often a little frightening (listen to 'Nice People' and see if it doesn't set the hairs on the back of your neck on end). His advanced (though often somewhat elliptical!) finger-picking guitar style, coupled with his wildly surreal lyrics (truly exceptional in many cases) have convinced me personally that he's a potential major talent (and he's a ridiculous 21 years old), and I would never use this latter phrase lightly. The 21 songs (some of which clock in at about 30 seconds) on this CD each contain their own special (psycho?) drama and immediately memorable melody -- no mean feat when your instrumentation is limited to acoustic guitar and voice with only the occasional hand clap or whistle thrown in as 'orchestration.' In a popular music environment inundated with computer/electronic generated sound and sanitized ProTools mixes, it's a tremendous relief to hear something so ridiculously compelling that's also so low tech, utterly personal, and handmade .The songs were recorded on assorted borrowed and usually broken four-track cassette recorders by Devendra himself, in various haphazard locations around the globe. These recordings were made solely for himself, and were not intended as "demos" in order to get the proverbial 'record deal,' and they're better for it –- devoid of any self consciousness or artifice, just Devendra's skewed, idiosyncratic, magically twisted world and imagination. " --Michael Gira, Young God Records