ALL THINGS MUSIC / THE ARTS
PAGE 8 • GO! MAGAZINE
ThursdAy, July 29, 2021 • ThE BullETIN
Bandcampin’: Good stuff for your ears
tars, slower tempos, more post-punk than
pop-punk, but still with heaping helpings of
Schwarzenbach’s familiar rasp. It was no Jaw-
breaker, but then again, that was the point.
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 con-
sider supporting the artist with a purchase.
NOURA MINT SEYMALI, “Tzenni”
CANARY ROOM, “Christine”
Maddy Heide is a Portland-based sing-
er-songwriter with a whole bunch of songs
posted to her Bandcamp at canaryroom.
bandcamp.com. But this unassuming five-
track EP isn’t there; it’s a co-release by two
small labels, Bud Tapes and Oranj Discs,
and it’s exceedingly lovely. Heide is a folk
singer with a knack for vocal melodies that
are compelling and comforting and end-
lessly listenable. (Seriously, I’ve listened to
this thing like eight times in a row.) Part of
the magic here is the recording, which was
done outside, so you can hear birds chirping
alongside Heide’s acoustic guitar and voice.
The result is a set of songs that are quietly
enchanting, like a lo-fi Joni Mitchell, or the
contemporary sad-folk-pop band Florist.
This is the perfect soundtrack for a slow
morning under gray skies.
JETS TO BRAZIL,
“Orange Rhyming Dictionary”
From 1986 to 1996, Blake Schwarzen-
bach was the singer and songwriter for
Jawbreaker, a Bay Area punk band that
was revered for its fiercely anti-establish-
ment stance, and then ostracized by its own
scene for signing to a major label during the
music industry’s post-Nirvana punk-rock
feeding frenzy. After Jawbreaker broke up,
Schwarzenbach moved across the country
and started Jets to Brazil, as if he was trying
to leave behind his old life and music and
start anew. The point of all of this is that in
the fall of 1998, Jets to Brazil’s debut album,
“Orange Rhyming Dictionaryk” was hotly
anticipated, and it delivered: buzzy gui-
Continued from previous page
Several years ago, Art in the High Desert
invited the public to see the jurying process
firsthand, and the 110 or so artists who were
juried in and journeyed here each year ac-
complished what they’d intended: selling
their work over the course of the three-day
show. AHD consistently ranked highly in
the Art Fair SourceBook, a bible of the in-
dustry, in terms of sales.
Then came the pandemic. In December
2020, AHD released a letter to artists, volun-
teers and supporters letting them know that
due to uncertainties relating to the pandemic,
the show would be canceled for the second
consecutive year. Below those explicatory first
few paragraphs were the plans — or, rather,
lack of plans — for AHD beyond 2021.
“The board is looking for a new director
who would need to develop a new team (with
the past board’s help). This director will have
specific skills that fit into the AHD model: a
person who has extensive background as a
show artist and/or background in producing
top level juried art & craft shows,” the letter
read in part. “The new team will need to re-
new, re-establish, and create new partnerships
and address financing for a paid director po-
sition. With the help of a reliable working
Board, Carla & Dave Fox have guided AHD,
mostly unpaid, as a gift to artists and the Cen-
tral Oregon community for 12 years.”
Any possible director would need to
It seems Noura Mint Seymali was predes-
tined to make vibrant and vital music for
the world to enjoy. Born into a prominent
musical family in her home country of Mau-
ritania (on Africa’s western coast), Seymali
learned to sing from her famous stepmother,
to write songs from her scholar father and
to play the ardine — a nine-string harp tra-
ditionally reserved for women — from her
grandmother. After years as a well-known
artist in her part of the world, Seymali’s
2014 album “Tzenni” took her blend of tra-
ditional Moorish griot music and modern
dance-pop around the globe. It’s easy to hear
why it travels so well: Seymali’s distinctive
melodies and her husband Jeiche Ould Chi-
ghaly’s psychedelic guitar work make for an
entrancing combination.
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.
make a living wage, and the new board
would need to be prepared to roll up sleeves
and work, not just advise, the letter noted.
“We have said for two or three or four
years, at least to the artists, or anybody who’d
listen, ‘We can’t keep doing this. We need
someone else to take it over,’” Carla Fox said.
“It’s a little bittersweet. I’m happy right
now that I’m not doing all the work. I’m
working on my jewelry, and I’ve got new
things happening. I’ve been working on on-
line classes — I’ve developed a new in-per-
son class. I teach metalsmithing.”
Fox described a recent visit to AHD’s
home, the Old Mill District — whose staff
Art in the High Desert has long enjoyed a
symbiotic relationship with, she said — as
bittersweet.
“I know that the closer it gets to August,
the sadder I’m going to be,” she said. “Walk-
ing the site and thinking of how wonderful
it was, and all the artists, and all the good
feelings, that weekend was a real high for us.
Maybe we’ll go out of town that weekend, or
something else.”
The Foxes welcome ideas and input for
keeping Art in the High Desert alive. In an
email to GO!, Carla wrote: “How important
is it for AHD to continue? Are others ready
to step-up, help, donate money, sponsor?
Those interested should email to: info@art-
inthehighdesert.com.”
e
David Jasper: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com