Silent Mind

Sam Heller // Staff Writer

Burlington’s own Jamie Bright, also known by his stage name Silent Mind, may perform as a solo act, but his new album, “Good Morning Mr. Bright,” to be released Sept. 30, is in many ways a community project.

“Basically art and community are crucial. No matter where you live as an artist, your community feeds that artistry on some level,” Bright said.

Bright spoke from experience. “Good Morning Mr. Bright” was funded in large part through donations from fans and community members on Indiegogo, a crowd-sourced fundraising organization.

Bright gives back to his community as well. For the past two years, he has dedicated his time to Burlington’s Committee On Temporary Shelter (“COTS”).

“The goal of COTS is essentially to end homelessness in Vermont,” Bright said. “A local musician did a compilation CD about two years ago called ‘Harmonies for Humanity,’ and I was in a band that happened to be involved with that compilation. That was all for COTS, and that’s how I started to get involved.”

Bright has donated a percentage of the money earned from the “Good Morning Mr. Bright” fundraising campaign to COTS. He also organized an ongoing monthly concert series featuring local songwriters on the organization’s behalf.

Bright said his pursuit of good karma stems in part from a fascination with Hinduism. Bright founded his own record label named Chakra 5 Records.

While promoting “Good Morning Mr. Bright,” the artist undertook a 28-day vow of silence at a yoga retreat in Canada and for years he’s been taking voice lessons from an Indian classical musician named Deepak Kumar.

“Deepak is my homie!” Bright said. “We’re actually gonna start working on an album that he has in mind that’s very much a combination of the East and West… But on that record [‘Good Morning Mr. Bright’] the influence is very subtle.”

Instead, Bright described “Good Morning Mr. Bright” as “i-Folk,” a term that he jokingly coined to describe the mobile generation’s ever-growing size of the musical tradition.

“I-Folk is everything I have on my iPod and dude, it’s vast,” he said. “I guess my point is that the question of what your influences are is kind of moot these days, you know?”

“We’re a generation that has what 30 years ago would have been like, the world’s most aficionado record collection in our pockets. We walk around with that. Isn’t that so fuckin’ rad?”

“Good Morning Mr. Bright” will be available for purchase Sept. 30 at http://www.silentmindmusic.com/. - The Vermont Cynic

Jamie Bright, Vermont-based singer/songwriter who performs as Silent Mind, will be releasing his most recent album on September 30th, 2014. He will be releasing the full album exclusively through his website and releasing a single per month for a year via major distribution outlets such as iTunes, Amazonmp3, CDBaby, Spotify.

Utilizing Indiegogo, a crowd-sourced fundraising organization, Silent Mind raised money to support his album release on Chakra-5-Records and Sound Chemistry. 5% of those funds were donated to COTS, whose aim is to end homelessness in Vermont, and 5% to New Jersey based charity, Diva For A Day. Diva for a Day provides “A Quiet Day of Beauty, Comfort & Support for Women dealing with cancer.” Silent Mind will continue to donate to those charities for the life of the albums sales. - IndieMinded.com