“If you like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and all the other bearded hippies, this is for you”.
Or maybe, as for me, if you don’t like Fleet Foxes and even less Devendra Banhart, this is for you. I even ignore if this English guy known as Silent Paper Radios has got a beard. Oh, whatever. He came out last year with “Reborn As A Wind Chime”, and now he’s back with “The Willow Tree” EP (both available for free). “Calm acoustic songs, sometimes with banjo or some other kling klang instrumentation”, as mblogger DFBM explains.
I think that his best effort so far is “Hoping”, from last year’s album. That’s where he really managed to transcend the bearded-hippy-with-folk-guitar form cliche, turning it into a deeply touching and melancholic prayer. There’s a bunch of great moments in the new EP as well, thanks mainly to more subtle, chamberlike arrangements and choruses. And yes, there is a lot of banjo.
Listen to “The Willow Tree” EP [2010] by Silent Paper Radios.
Listen to “Reborn As A Wind Chime” [2009] by Silent Paper Radios.
Go to Silent Paper Radios myspace.
