Devendra Banhart

Often regarded as the godfather of the nu-folk scene, Devendra Banhart's traditional, finger-picking, singer-songwriter style comes with psychedelic, avant-garde and country influences; while his lyrics meander through strange and wonderfully oddball worlds. Raised in Caracas by his mother, Banhart returned to LA when he was 14 and dropped out of college to busk and drift around Paris, before releasing his first recordings through Michael Gira's label Young God Records. Sometimes described as freak folk, sometimes a psychedelic minstrel, third album Nino Rojo (2004) brought him wider acclaim when the track At The Hop was used to advertise Cathedral City cheese and Little Yellow Spider featured in a commercial for Orange. Moving to British label XL, he released the acclaimed Cripple Crow (2005) and Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (2007) albums, and briefly made the headlines for dating Hollywood movie star Natalie Portman. Often dismissed as a new age beardy weirdy hipster, Banhart's art work has been displayed in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and his compilation record of like-minded artists, The Golden Apples of the Sun (2004), is seen as kick-starting the New Weird America movement.