I’ve posted so much electronic shit recently you could be forgiven for thinking I’m slowly falling into my own Tron-like alternate reality, but I swear to you, there is still an organic soul hidden under all these circuit boards. In fact, a little bit of flesh surfaced this week when I started to get into Volcano Choir, the joint project of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and folk heroes Collections of Colonies of Bees. Their debut album, Unmap, was conceived a few years ago but only dropped on Jagjaguwar last September. The release met with largely positive reviews and subsequently fell into my ears provoking a similarly happy response.

At times enchanting, at others a little confusing and piecemeal, Unmap is a diverse instrumental collage delicately augmented by Vernon’s falsetto vocals. Conjuring an atmosphere reminiscent of a wounded Sufjan Stevens, although perhaps a little less epic, there’s a distinctly tidal feel to the record as a constant pastiche of styles and instruments celestially dissolve in and out of earshot. ‘Island, IS’, ‘Still’ (which features the same vocals as ‘Woods’ from Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP) and ‘Husks and Shells’ are all beautiful tracks which plunge me into a euphoric stupor, but ‘Seeplymouth’ vividly stands out as the undoubted highlight and for your enjoyment, I’ve attached it below. This is music that makes me smile.

Volcano Choir – Seeplymouth

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Buy Volcano Choir music at 7digital.

I’m going to tell you about a couple of albums I’ve been listening to since we’ve been absent because, well, I don’t have anything else to write about at the moment. News doesn’t tend to get released at 2am on a Thursday morning, so I guess I’ll have to make my own.

Alongside my usual melange of dubstep, looped Minilogue and the occasional return to the metal days of old, I’ve really been getting into the folky/acoustic indie end of things. Bon Iver’s album For Emma, Forever Ago is one of the most heart-warming and inspirational records I’ve ever listened to and even though Justin Vernon looks like he should smell of leaves, his ability to communicate a sense of isolation and quivering intensity is nothing short of awesome. From the humble beginnings of ‘Flume’ to the whispering resolution of ‘Re: Stacks’, every track flows with its own sense of melancholic purpose. It gives me a cosy sense of security, as if I were holed up in a small wooden cabin with a roaring fire and no worries. Which is weird because when I looked the album up on Wikipedia, I found out it was all recorded in a log cabin in Wisconsin, a fact I found strangely satisfying. It also makes me want to grow a beard, which is something I can [sort of, and eventually will] do.

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