In a Funk: Devendra Banhart, 'What Will We Be'

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WITH HIS THIN frame, throwback wardrobe, flowing beard and wispy delivery, Devendra Banhart was the freakiest of the freak folkers, that wave of lo-fi acoustic strummers who prized the weird, offputting intimacy of off-the-map '60s folk. He's also arguably the most successful: the Houston-born, Venezuela-raised musician has opened for bossa nova legend Gilberto Gil, remixed Oasis, exhibited sketches in museums and dated Natalie Portman.

Success, however, seems to have left him a bit aimless. His 2007 album, "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon," sounded as formless as a cloud of marijuana smoke, delivering only a mild contact high. "What Will We Be" improves on that sedated haze, indulging a range of sounds and styles over the course of 13 tracks. The fragile "Angelika" breaks for a trippy bossa nova interlude, while "Baby" melds R&B rhythms to one of Banhart's most straightforward compositions. "16th & Valencia" thrums electronically, as if he's covering the Strokes, and "Rats" forays into a dark, Doorsy jam.

At some point, however, that diversity becomes the main point of "What Will We Be," suggesting a willful scrambling of influences rather than a natural synthesis.

Banhart sounds surprisingly spry on songs like "Brindo," "Angelika," and "Wiliamdzi," which incorporate South American musical traditions to nice effect, playing up the lackadaisical qualities of the percolating rhythms.

Mostly, however, he sounds less like an inspired artist than like an artist trying to find inspiration in so many possibilities. In that regard, these songs sound like rough sketches for a more cohesive and invested work. As a result, he sounds newly detached on "What Will We Be," barely inhabiting his own songs.

In other words, Banhart is in a funk. Earlier in his career, he had great ambitions but lacked the means to fully realize them, which forced him to find precociously creative short cuts and to put his stoned charm at the forefront. But on "Smoky Rolls" and "What Will We Be," his means have caught up with his ambitions, rendering his music more indulgent than inventive. His freakiness has become a well-rehearsed end in itself, but hopefully soon he'll figure out a way to be his old, weird self again.

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Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner