Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson - Refuge

Format: Blue Seaglass Wave Translucent 2xLP Vinyl

CAT: DOC262LP-C1

Label: Dead Oceans

Tracklist: 

1. Book of Bringhi
2. A Cat
3. Rise From Your Wave
4. Peloponnese Lament
5. In a Cistern
6. Into Clouds
7. For Em
8. Three Gates
9. Horn in Deep Night
10. Sky Burial
11. Asura Cave
12. Aran in Repose
13. Lament Return (Physical Version Only

Last spring, Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson started to make a record that was like nothing they had made before – an ambient album that would be both a haven from a suddenly terrified world and a heartfelt musical dialogue between two men who have been friends and collaborators for over two decades. Refuge is an album of profound meditative beauty which offers the listener a much-needed sense of peace and renewal. But while it was recorded in 2020 it’s roots go back much further – all the way to the start of their friendship and, beyond that, to the shared sounds and ethics of their childhoods. “When the pandemic began, we realised we needed to make this record,” Devendra says. “But we’ve been talking about it for so long. It’s kind of been 20 years in the making.” Devendra and Noah met on the night of Halloween, 1999. Noah lived on Castro Street, the epicentre of San Francisco’s Halloween celebrations, so their first encounter was in costume. “He was wearing a skirt and I was dressed as Bjorn Borg,” Noah remembers. “I wasn’t sure if this was Halloween or just him and it was the same for me. His first impression was that I was a French drug dealer.” Having established that he was not, in fact, a French drug dealer, they became fast friends. Noah, whose production and mixing credits include Joanna Newsom and the Strokes, came on board as co-producer of Devendra’s 2005 album Cripple Crow and they have been working together ever since. Devendra grew up in Venezuela while Noah, six years older, is a native of Nevada City, California.