ALL THINGS MUSIC
PAGE 4 • GO! MAGAZINE
Thursday, april 1, 2021 • ThE BullETiN
Bandcampin’: Good stuff for your ears
BY BEN SALMON • For The Bulletin
B
andcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s
also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases
available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with
a purchase.
VALERIE JUNE
“The Moon and Stars:
Prescriptions for Dreamers”
Valerie June’s first two albums —
2013’s “Pushin’ Against A Stone” and
2017’s “The Order of Time” — made
big splashes in the world of roots mu-
sic, and they established the Tennes-
see singer-songwriter as a rising star.
For her third album, June brought in a
producer befitting a star: Jack Splash,
who has worked with Alicia Keys, John
Legend and Kendrick Lamar. Together,
they created “The Moon and Stars:
Prescriptions for Dreamers,” a collec-
tion of heartfelt, handcrafted songs
soaked in June’s distinctly Southern
blend of folk, country, blues, soul and
pop and then sprinkled with a lumi-
nous atmosphere that gives the album
an elegant and mystical feel. It’s a third
straight stunner from June, who may
not yet be a household name, but is un-
doubtedly one of the brightest stars in
the roots-music universe these days.
CENDE
“#1 HIT SINGLE”
Cende was a New York rock band
(now defunct, sadly) and “#1 Hit Sin-
gle” is their only full-length album, re-
leased in 2017 on one of my favorite re-
cord labels, Double Double Whammy.
I hadn’t even heard of the band, much
less the record, until recently. Now, I’m
obsessed. One of the most interesting
things about Cende’s jangling, punky
pop music is how Cameron Wisch’s
bright, buoyant melodies seem to
fade away and then resurface, slightly
evolved, across different tracks. Anyway,
the songwriting here reminds me very
much of The New Pornographers’ Carl
Newman, more specifically his old band
Zumpano. They also kind of sound
like The Shins with a bit more oomph.
I don’t know how I missed this album
when it was released, but I’m making
up for it now by playing it nonstop for
the past two weeks. Try it for yourself!
NUX VOMICA
“Nux Vomica”
Nux Vomica started in Baltimore
back in the early 2000s and eventu-
ally moved to Portland, where they in-
stantly became one of the best heavy
bands in a town full of great heavy
bands. The best evidence of this is Nux
Vomica’s self-titled album, which came
out in 2014 on metal mega-label Re-
lapse Records and later landed on a ton
of lists of that year’s best records. Spend
some time with it and you’ll hear why.
Where a lot of bands say they incorpo-
rate sludge and doom and black metal
and punk into their sound, these dudes
actually did it, they did it with an effort-
lessness that you don’t hear very often
and they did it in a way that was still,
somehow, catchy and compelling, even
when their songs stretched out beyond
10 minutes long. A recent revisit was a
good reminder that “Nux Vomica” is a
modern extreme metal classic.
e e
Ben Salmon is a Bend-based music journalist
and host of Left Of The Dial, which airs 8-10 p.m.
Thursdays on KPOV, 88.9 FM and streams at kpov.
org. You can find him on Bandcamp and Twitter at
@bcsalmon.
Nux Vomica started in Baltimore back in the early 2000s and eventually moved to
Portland, where they instantly became one of the best heavy bands in a town full of
great heavy bands. The best evidence of this is Nux Vomica’s self-titled album.