even if you havent heard of volcano choir, youll definitely recognize the vocalist as soon as you hear the song. thats because its none other than everyones favorite lovelorn singer songwriter justin vernon, better known as bon iver. in this very interesting side project, he collaborates with collections of colonies of bees in releasing the album “unmap”. i dont really know anything about them, but apparently they are also from wisconsin. and im listening to some of their stuff as i type this, so now i know more about them. and they sound like a pretty cool instrumental and experimental posse. and they sort of remind me a lot of a grittier version of do make say think, and thats a good thing.

while “island, is” is a pretty straight forward song with really neat music and those trademark vernon vocals, do not expect the rest of the album to follow suit. as vernon says of the album to pitchfork, “i sing on the album, but there arent a lot of lyrics — its definitely on the experimental side of things”. and he aint just whistlin’ dixie. on the track “and gather”, vernon sings nonsensical noises throughout the song, all layered over what sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a baby einstein video, but for some reason, it just seems to work. i wanted to make sure i listened to this album a few times and really got a good sense of it before i posted, and i can say that im really liking it in all its glorious weirdness, even though a few of the tracks are too much even for me. while this track is pretty mainstream sounding and great (any song whose final lyrics are “and your old tits on your hard drive” is bound to be good), dont approach this album expecting “for emma, forever ago pt II” or you will be sorely disappointed.

volcano choir – island, is