The folk-revival revival has finally been given the crossover nod, with
weirdo outsider-folk somehow becoming the hip sound of ought-four. Ever
since the pop-cultural populace had something the Americkns called
"electronica" crammed down the collective craw in the mid-'90s, there's
been a folk renaissance a-brewin'; working with musical primitivism and
respect for oral-traditions acts, akin to rebellion in the
digital culture, that reigned as the millennium wound down to its
anticlimactic conclusion. Until recently, the clearest signs of such a
movement were communes of wacked-out weirdos — the Tower Recordings, the
Sunburned Hand of the Man, Six Organs of Admittance — cultivating a
community whose calloused hands tilled the soil with heart and soul,
helping the flowery-underground scene/sound to grow and grow. This
revivalism finally found its poster boy in Devendra Banhart, the
handsome, highly idiosyncratic, home-recording freeform folkie whose
vocal pitch regularly cops descriptions like Marc-Bolan-meets-Tiny-Tim.
With an XL deal selling him and his Vashti-Bunyan-guesting second album
to the world at large, Banhart is soon to be beyond huge; which, in
turn, will mean that this Vetiver record, essentially a vehicle for San Franciscan
songsmith Andy Cabic, is bound to find an eager audience. Banhart helps out as
guitarist, backing vocalist, and
fully-fledged band-member in Vetiver, even co-authoring a couple cuts on
this debut longplayer. He's not the only notable name, with Hope
Sandoval and Colm O'Ciosoig of the Warm Inventions (and formerly of
Mazzy Star and My Bloody Valentine respectively, of course) and
debutante-of-the-year Joanna Newsom all guesting, too. But it's really
Cabic's show, and he mines a line in quiet folk with a clean croon; he
seems to have spent his time taking in early Bert Jansch, John Martyn,
Skip Spence, and likely J.J. Cale, too. On this debut, Cabic eschews
using percussion — save for moments where he fashions rudimentary rhythm
from stomping — and, instead, drapes his six-stringing fingerpicking in
plentiful strings, chugs of locomotive cello and mournful fiddling often
coloring Vetiver's songs. Like Iron & Wine songsmith Sam Beam — an
easy and accurate comparison — Cabic alternates between pretty folk songs
and laggard blues laments; and, under Banhart's sway, he even moves into
strumming simplicity and Spanish singing on a couple cuts. But, for me,
the best songs here are a pair of playful miniatures: "Farther On," with
its whimsical fingerpicking and chorus'd vocals; and "Arboretum," a
sweet ode to driving through a leafy sanctuary that shows Cabic,
clutching his chosen performance moniker, has a botanist's mind to go
with his hippie's heart.
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