Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson Announce Ambient Album “Refuge”

The duo shared two tracks off the full-length scheduled for August 13 via Dead Oceans. 
Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson Announce Ambient Album “Refuge”

The duo shared two tracks off the full-length scheduled for August 13 via Dead Oceans. 

Words: Margaret Farrell

photo by Lauren Dukoff

June 23, 2021

Have you been feeling stressed lately? Unnerved by the sudden return to normalcy? Unsure of how you feel? Well, the latest collaborative project by Devendra Banhart and Noah Georgeson is bound to help you return to a sense of mindfulness. The two musicians have announced an ambient album Refuge, which is out August 13 via Dead Oceans, and today they’ve shared the tracks “In a Cistern” and “Into Clouds.”

The album started to come together last spring when a jarring new reality manifested, making music feel like more of a sought-after solace than usual. Banhart and Georgeson have been creative collaborators for over two decades, but the two decided it was time to make an ambient record while working on Banhart’s 2019 album Ma. However, the pandemic forced them to work remotely at first, even though they live close to each other in Los Angeles. The two pals described this work as “the most intimate thing we’ve done… This would be the only record we could possibly make like this.”

“We’re hoping to create a sense of comfort and coming back to the moment,” Banhart said of Refuge. “It’s really important to have a little bit of space between us and our anxieties and impulses. What you do with that space is up to you.”

These two new tracks come with a video directed by Nicky Giraffe and Julianna Giraffe. There’s images of snails, bees pollinating flowers, snails on eggshells, statues, trees, snails on statues, vast landscape portraits, and some worms. But mostly, there’s snails. Nicky Giraffe explained the visual as, “a meditative look at the life’s journey of two snails, from conception to old age, as narrated by a choir of natural imagery and other bugs.” Watch it below, and pre-order Refuge here.