Julianne Hansen Anderson displays range on ‘Desert Rider’

Published 2:48 pm Thursday, November 21, 2019

Bend musician and sound healer Julianne Hansen Anderson, who performs under the name Jae Jae and up until this year owned Tribe Women’s Fitness yoga studio, will release her debut EP, “Desert Rider,” at a show at Twin Acre Farm on Sunday (facebook.com/events/2153089624999586). The classically trained singer and songwriter recorded the EP, inspired by “her homesteading adventures in the wild desert of Central Oregon,” according to a news release, with JuJu Eyeball’s Dan Larsson at his Bend studio.

The five songs on “Desert Rider” show off Jae Jae’s range, in multiple senses. First, there’s her enviable vocal range, which can move from Joni Mitchell-esque folksinging to acrobatic jazz and opera in the course of a single song, as she does on the yearning desert anthem “Saguaro.”

Then, there’s the genre-blending that occurs throughout. Each song sets a different mood, from the dark murder balladry of the title track, with its loping acoustic guitar and percussion, to the left-field, jazzy chord progression that underpins “Ship Lies Waiting.” “River So Deep” is perhaps the brightest-sounding song here, offering up a near-lullaby about motherhood to counteract the darkness that seeps into other songs.

It all comes together on closing track “Sir Soldier Soldier,” which opens with Jae Jae’s solo vocal scatting before moving into cello-driven folk-rock. Here, the full band — led by producer, bassist and drummer Larsson — gets to shine, building to an emotional climax that sews up the album’s wide-open desert themes nicely.