Vetiver To Find Me Gone

Can I mention the "folk revival"? Is it not all a bit much now? There are some terms that music writers are banned from using; I have mentioned before that "eclectic" is one of them. In the last year or so, overuse of the "new folk," "alt. folk," "folk explosion" pigeonhole/label/moniker has been one of the most glaring tendencies in the music press, alongside wanking oneself off with anything by the Arctic Monkeys.

Nevertheless, the evidence: Vetiver is Andy Cabic's movable feast of a group, exchanging members with Devendra Banhart's band, amongst others. Vetiver performed in front of a packed house at the Barbican for folk doyenne Vashti Bunyan's Folk Britannia evening. Joanna Newsom played harp on the outfit's eponymous debut release. I believe the folk connection stands established, m'lud.

However, let's not be too hasty in our journalistic taxonomies. Cabic is a witty and soulful songwriter with many strings to his bow, and as much as folk influences are clear on To Find Me Gone, Vetiver offer a cornucopia of an album, taking on Brazilian Tropicália, 70s West Coast rock, and solid, well put together AOR. Cabic, like Caetano Veloso or Neil Young, is a marvellous reminder that simplicity, subtlety, and songs can all work together to create cracking albums. Despite the number of players, including Banhart himself, Otto Hauser on drums, and Kevin Barker on guitar, and a wide instrumental palette that draws on pedal steel, electric guitar flourishes, and layered strings, both album and songs form coherent wholes, with stand out tracks such as the effortlessly splendid Idle Ties or Red Lantern Girls, the latter complete with a howling, The Chain-style guitar solo to finish. The last couple of years have seen Cabic out on the road, both as Vetiver and as a member of the Banhart band, and lyrically this experience appears in songs that treat love and loss, distance and travel, yet sport a generally spring-like, hippy vibe that suggests Joni Mitchell and Jim Morrison may be hanging around somewhere in the back of the studio drinking red wine and planning a trip to the desert. Won't Be Me, for example rolls and frolics along with the abandon of a 1960s commune in Ibiza.

Let's hope pigeonholing and myopia don't see Cabic passed over as simply one of a pack of folk/folky/folkish bandwagon-jumpers. Vetiver boast a rich, distinctive sound, and a host of ear-catching tunes. One of the albums of this, admittedly short, spring.