ARTS The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 21, 2005 -11 FOLKIS SACRED 'CROW) BANHART 'S ECCENTRIC STYLE SHOWCASED IN LATEST LP By Kat Bawden Daily Arts Writer ThE HOTTEST PICKS IN ENTERTAINMENT FROM A DAILY ARTS WRITER .S 'Son of a Witch' by Gregory Maguire - Gregory Maguire returns to the Oz he first made famous in his book "Wicked" and then in the Broad- way musical of the same name, with a new book - "Son of a Witch." Expect Maguire to flesh out new characters, raise new questions and make the land of Oz a whole lot more interesting than when Dorothy skipped down the Yellow Brick Road in shiny red shoes. Devendra Banhart's appeal rests in his dual- ity. In one hand there is the spiritual and intro- verted Nick Drake-esque, neofolk minstrel. In the other hand there is the obtuse musical oddity who sings in echoing moans with the creepiness of proto-glam- rockers T. Rex. He's simul- taneously comforting and dangerous. And his fourth Devendra Banhart Cripple Crow XL artistic endeavor, Cripple Crow, only augments his stylistic mystique. Born in Texas, Banhart's parents were follow- ers of Indian mystics - hence his uncommon name. At age two, his parents divorced, and Banhart, who began writing songs at 12 years old, was raised by his mother in the shantytowns of Caracas, Venezuela. Later he dropped out of the San Francisco Art Institute and moved to Paris, where he was discovered by a producer and began recording his music. The opening tracks of Cripple are red her- rings. The first song, "Now That I Know," is soft and acoustic, calm without being overly maudlin. The second, "Santa Maria Da Feira," is a wispy bossa nova sung in Spanish, complete with echoing violins and an ethereal flute, which lulls the listener into a sense of calm. One might think, "I can chill out to this." Not so. The third song, "Long Haired Child," carries the listener down a much, much creepier path. Banhart's voice changes to a Lou Reed warble (Think the strung-out stutter of "Heroin.") as he sings "Maybe when it's day, it's cold, and I know for certain / When I go outside and my head started hurtin."' The sitar-laden jam "Lazy Butterfly" takes a sharp stylistic turn with a bizarrely sexy and mys- tical overtone. Conversely, the gorgeous "Queen Bee" is a poignant slide-guitar-filled ballad. The song "The Beatles" dances from a blithe pop tune to a rich bossa nova before disinte- grating into a raucous miscellany of pounding, screeching and other entropic noises. Then the title track, "Cripple Crow," has the quality of a Normal celebrity baby names - Heidi Klum names her baby Henry, Tina Fey names hers Alice and Britney Spears takes a refresh- ingly conventional route and names her offspring Sean Preston. Hal- lelujah, a return to normalcy! It seems as though celebrities have finally realized that naming your child after a fruit is more kooky than cool. 'Tim Burton's Corpse Bride' - This eerie clay- mation picture looks as if it will be equal parts scary movie, high drama and light-hearted fun. Tim Burton, you are one creepy man. I can't wait to see it, even if half the people sitting in the audience with me will either be stoned out of their minds or terrified, disillusioned second-graders. www.stuffonmycat.com - There are a lots of cats. And a lot of stuff. And lots of weird, crazy stuff on cats. But it's just really funny. I couldn't stop laughing at the tiny cat snuggled up in a plastic bottle. And besides, the kitties are so cute! I could look at this for hours. 'Desperate Housewives' on DVD - House- wives that are sexy, slutty, neurotic and frazzled make for some damn good TV. My roommates and I can't get enough of the show, especially now that it's on DVD - gossip, scandal, mys- tery and humor fed to us whenever we want it. What could be better? Courtesy of ABC H H R TT A K E S PAULVANDYK ua Th POuTICS OF DANCING VO. intr self'ndsits esnrd 2 ~ister'selfand Lissfuly buflles thrugh 2 the remainder cfat s duraIon. MurE Rcons ~ The mostcompositoally intrigin On The Politics of Dancing V(4. song the albumis"Linking People." 2 compilation, long-time European Its dramatic niatre avoids becoming trance royalty Paul Van Dyk gives melodramathroughVany'smp- listeners a tuned presentation of his cabletiming adpatiend.A recent favorites. Though at times a tad peep-show of a trk, it reeatd y diluted daring its two-disc odyssey, reveals ju~st a little onc ctay efr it's a tracklist in which Van Drykaban- shrinking back n itself. dons trance's traditional push and pull Van Dyk does rer to the trade between melancholy gnd euphoria, tional changing tides of mince woth mixing in a shotof aggression. "Linking People:" but tbese indulgenc- The compilation threatens to es are set tp well by intermittent fts of become passive background music aggression. Pditks awoids becoming until a mean streak finally disropts the white noise of ehoria ormelan its initial complacency on "Dream epeated ad nauseum. On," The track is just another harm- - Russe1Mc illan Tess trance spjell, devoid f anynance, *** '"ouresy fXL Now that's a lot of hair. religious service - there's a beautifully hypnotic aspect to it but also an impervious excitement as he sings, "Now that our bones lay buried below us / Just like stones pressed into the earth / Well we ain't known by no one before us / And we begin with this one little birth / That grows on." It is a colorful, albeit unconventional progres- sion of sound. By this point, the former idea of Banhart as a hippie-dippie folkie is shot. The man is wild, unpredictable and emotionally sav- age with his listeners. But Banhart deserves credit for not only dar- ing to show his audience his methodical insanity, but for also doing it with ease and confidence. Though his eccentric moments may raise eye- brows and cause doubt, his strong creativity and ability to concoct an unconventionally beautiful song never fail. The music on Cripple is full of recogniz- able patterns and genres (folk, blues, rock) that Banhart twists to form a genre all his own. His voice shifts between a deep rusty whisper, a high almost-jarring warble and every style in between, never becoming blase. His spiri- tual and eccentric persona is too strong to be ignored. One fault of the album, however, is the hefty length. There are 22 tracks, and though none of them are awful, Cripple is overbearing, and it becomes difficult to remember the songs indi- vidually - which is a shame, because Ban- hart's inexhaustible talent for cultivating songs deserves to be remembered as more than just a block of sound. DAILY ARTS. 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