Before Mumford & Sons and “nu folk”, there was “freak folk”. The scene similarly drew on jaunty, banjos-around-the campfire tropes – but in place of the waist-coats and tweeness, it incorporated folk horror and hints of psychedelia.

Though always doomed to go down in sputters, freak folk did put a spotlight on the tuned in-dropped out music of California-by-way-of-Venezuela troubadour Devendra Banhart. Wrapped in alt-hippie garb and trappings, Banhart achieved acclaim with 2004’s Niño Rojo, leading to sell out shows in Ireland and elsewhere.

Now comes the latest chapter in Banhart’s career as he teams up with Joanna Newsom producer Noah Georgeson for a collection of ambient pieces that pulse and swell and radiate the eerie aura of a midnight walk through misty woodlands.

Whether by intentionally or not, the duo have tapped into the zeitgeist and the vogue for ambient records. Sufjan Stevens has put out two since the start of the pandemic (the second a multi-disc homage to his recently passed father), as has dance producer Daniel Avery.

Refuge may be cut from a similar cloth, but it is less bleak than those collections, which often seemed to fancy themselves unofficial Blade Runner soundtracks. As befits two musicians with enough beard to provision an entire coffee shop of Dublin hipsters, Banhart and Georgeson shoot for something more bucolic. Floating on disembodied guitar and piano, ‘In A Cistern’, for instance, sounds like mood music from the lobby of Tolkien’s Mirkwood, while the gentle pulsations of ‘Into Clouds’ make you want to lie back and stare into the sky’s aching blue wonder.

One composition flows into the next, melodies slipping into the void just as they begin to cohere. And though closer ‘Aran In Repose’ suggests an Irish influence, its soundscapes are merely a rephrasing of the wooziness that went before, albeit with bonus flutes. Refuge, then, is very much its own thing. If you’re willing to commit, the effect is intoxicating.

Listen below.