Indie / Alternative

With his third album, The Big Swim, on Les Disque Bongo Joe, Augenwasser ventures once again into the paths of synth wave exploration with a pop feel. Still laced with the folk textures of his early days, he nevertheless develops a dance approach that can at times be akin to melancholic drone. His music takes you to an imaginary, dark club, lulled by a haunting rhythm, surrounded by the fumes of the night, where it is possible to indulge in that quiet voice that has already confessed that it is too late but will never stop repeating its soft, cold poetry. "You'll realize one sad morning/some things change without a warning." In the same way that we realize as a child that things are bigger than they seem, so we discover the music of Augenwasser. A simple and disturbing melody, beautiful and sincere, declined to excess, which grows with each track, as a stream turns into a lake, a music that builds a world of broken papers and enchanted ideas.

90 Day Men spent a decade boldly in conflict with the world, catering to no one and careening toward its own abyss. Forged by Midwestern teens amid a late-90s spike in angular indie rock, the band wrote itself into the lexicon of Chicago music history. Eschewing trend and time, 90 Day Men was as ornate as it was alienating, transcending genre and embracing the strange. This 5LP set, remastered by Heba Kadry, collects the band’s three studio albums and a previously unreleased 2001 Peel Session, plus EPs, singles, and outtakes, all detailed within a 68-page oral history curated by Joan of Arc’s Tim Kinsella.

エヴァーグリーンなインディ・ポップの鑑と言える大変秀逸な内容です！黄金期の〈Captured Tracks〉を代表するマスターピース『Nocturne』でもお馴染み、シューゲイズ/ドリーム・ポップを愛する者たちが一度は通るであろう名バンド「Wild Nothing」による実に5年ぶりとなった最新アルバム『Hold』が堂々アナログ・リリース。2018年の前作『Indigo』に続く5枚目のスタジオ・アルバム！Molly BurchやBecca Mancari、Tommy Davidson (Beach Fossils)、Hatchieといった豪華ゲストが結集。Young GuvやNew Orderのファンにもレコメンドしたい、メロディーを前面に押し出した底抜けに明るくユーフォリックなソフィスティ/ドリーム・ポップ作品に仕上がっています。

Nocturne, the sophomore album by Wild Nothing, is a window into singer/songwriter Jack Tatum's "ideal world" of pop music. Written largely while living in Savannah, GA during 2011, the songs that became Nocturne speak to a new Wild Nothing where the lines between Jack's influences and personality have been further blurred. The album features some open references to past music just as his critically acclaimed debut Gemini did, but it's also an album that feels much less rooted in anything in particular and, well, more adult. Gemini was written before there were Wild Nothing fans or even a live band; Nocturne is different. With an unexpected fan base to turn to, Jack spent more time perfecting his craft. The obsessiveness of Nocturne is inherent in it's gentle harmonies, orchestrated synths, wandering voice, and songs that speak of his post-Gemini experiences as he explores new paradoxes of pop. And yet, Nocturne isn't obvious, it is a strange and distinctive musical beast, the product of an obsessive pop vision that creates its own reality.

A lingering guitar note. A cushion of a bassline nudging along a hushed cadence unspooling impressionistic poeticism one halting line at a time; the sparse snap of a snare providing punctuation. This is how Boston’s Karate opened their third full-length, 1998’s The Bed Is In The Ocean. Perhaps this was a reaction to the aggressive punk tones that marked their previous album, or maybe they hoped to capture the somnambulant dusk on one of those pristine fall days that make living in a town whose population swells when colleges welcome back students all worthwhile. Then again, Karate never made a point of chasing the same idea twice, and “There Are Ghosts” remains in line with the band’s stylistic intrepidness and unpredictability. Even the group’s lineup appeared constantly in flux. After expanding from a trio to a quartet and employing a dual-guitar attack with 1997’s In Place of Real Insight, founding member Eamonn Vitt hung up his axe to attend medical school. Karate soldiered on as a trio, with mid-stream addition Jeff Goddard’s bass work helping establish a sidewinding path forward through the smoky jazz melodicism and sun-beaten blues brushstrokes that hung in the background of the band’s catalog. In their short time together, Karate helped bolster the national punk ecosystem, a scene in which individual artistic vision was prized but rarely achieved. Their exacting precision and emotive interplay helped recombine the DNA of the dignified grace of slowcore, the hot-and-sweaty atmospherics of the blues, and the high-wire tension of post-hardcore to deliver drawling instrumental curveballs and a furtive riptide climax with a controlled grace on “Outside Is The Drama.” Singer-guitarist Geoff Farina frequently teased out the emotional nuances of each song, his worn-in voice shading in the complexities of his enigmatic lyrics; no matter how difficult it may be to parse his snatched-from-daily-life wisdoms, on The Bed Is In The Ocean Farina sounded like a guy who knew exactly the right thing to tell whoever may be listening. And with Karate’s snaking turns through quasi-punk reveries no one else appeared capable of mustering, it’s comforting to hear it accomplished by a band that knew exactly what they were doing.

Kevin Morby writes (and records, and imagines) at an almost incomparable clip, and his most recent album, This Is A Photograph, studies life, time and mortality through myriad lenses. It’s a dynamic, buoyant record on big, heavy themes, so it only makes sense that Morby found he wasn’t quite done with it on its completion. More Photographs (A Continuum) finds new nooks, corners and vantage points. “If This Is A Photograph is a house that you have been living inside of,” says Morby, “then More Photographs is, perhaps, the same home just experienced differently. As if you, its inhabitant, have taken a tab of something psychedelic and now, suddenly, you've replaced your eyeglasses with kaleidoscopes.” Here, Morby returns to his landmark album's bottomless themes with new wisdom, new imagination, and the winking, looping callbacks that tie his full body of work together in uniquely special ways. “Everything you once thought was familiar,” he continues, “suddenly appears differently, shifting shapes, color and sonic landscapes.” “Five Easy Pieces Revisited” captures the same moment from Bobby’s point of view; “This Is A Photograph II” takes a similar tack, revisiting its predecessor from a different angle. “Triumph” explores more of the myths and deaths that surround Memphis, TN, this time inspired by Big Star’s Chris Bell. And “Kingdom Of Hearts” arrives as an origin story to both This Is A Photograph and its new companion. “With every collection of songs,” says Morby, “I feel I must cast them out of me before moving onto the next project, and here I knew that what I had begun with This Is A Photograph was not finished. Releasing this collection is my tying a bow on that time and place in my creative life.” With a luxurious nine tracks – three re-imaginings and six brand new songs – More Photographs (A Continuum) is prequel, sequel and primer to an already rich and generous record from one of our most luminous modern songwriters.

Driving is Sam Wilkes’ Indie Rock record. Out October 6th, 2023, it is the first release on Wilkes Records, an imprint borne of the artist’s emergent need to self-release. The songs presented here exist comfortably within the ever-expanding Wilkesian cosmos, characterized as they are by virtuosity, torqued experimentalism, and collaboration with a range of talented musicians. But Driving’s influences, its sincerity, and its allegiance to a certain pop sensibility reflects a departure for an artist who has primarily staked his claim within the experimental jazz idiom. Take the first track, “Folk Home,” which inaugurates the album’s fecundity—a bright, green, humid, summer feel. A swirling, freakout coda of reversed vocals gives way, in no short order, to a caterwaul of flute work that conjures Van Morrison’s (in)famous Astral Weeks sessions. Standing beside Morrison, the usual suspects are all present, if somewhat abstractedly. Dylan, The Dead, Joni, the Fab Four. Wilkes has developed a reputation as an experimental jazz luminary, but his deep affinity for the pop/rock/folk idiom of the latter twentieth century rings clear throughout Driving. More so than any Wilkes release to date, Driving is a collection guided by and dedicated to the man’s attention to songcraft. Written and recorded during a period of rain-damage induced renter’s itinerance (and the attendant desire to produce a kind of therapeutic, self-soothing, home-feeling music), Driving loosely charts the trajectory/experience of “a protagonist,” both Wilkes and not, “who has figured out how to live an enlightened and fulfilled life, but is unable to do so because he thinks about it too much.” This friction is surely relatable — a symptom of our compulsively self-aware present. But Wilkes avoids the obvious pitfalls of public hand-wringing. Rather, Driving’s nine tracks evince a genuine, and mature searching-ness, both sonically and lyrically. The ending refrain of “Own” serves like something close to a thesis— “Letting go // isn’t a concept // it’s an action.” In an attempt to beat back ego, hyper-cogitation, language itself, Wilkes arrives at an axiom that feels so true and familiar, you’d swear you’d heard it one hundred times before. Driving’s final third is, fittingly, its most emotive and cathartic. Tracks seven and eight, “Again, Again” and “And Again,” form a diptych, joined most obviously by the jangling, recursive grooves of guitarist Daryl Johns. Wilkes is said to have encouraged Johns to go “full Lindsey [Buckingham]” (clearly a welcome and resonant prompt), but one also catches stray Knopfler vibes, some intermittent Fripp, and (perhaps more-so in tone than technique) the spirit of DIY prophet and jangling man himself, Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus). Wilkes has stated that he finds joy in creating musical environments suitable to the contribution and flourishing of his favorite musicians. Throughout Driving, and in these two tracks especially, he has more than succeeded. The record closes with the titular track: a story-song that, according to Wilkes, poured out of him (melody, composition, and lyrics) in a single sitting. The tale is told plainly, bravely, starkly; a mistake was made, regrets have been had, and all is wrapped up in the recollection of a deeply felt adolescent heartsickness—a time when the narrator was first afire with music and automotive freedom. The song captures the moment when meaning inexplicably falls into place, when a long-nagging memory suddenly assumes narrative form, and the subsequent sense of lightness and unburdening. It is fitting that Driving, a record conceived as a form of self-therapy, should culminate with a sense of humble revelation. That Wilkes is plainly eager to share the vulnerable fruits of this labor constitutes Driving’s joyful offering.

In the swirl of underground music emerging from Dunedin, New Zealand in the 1980s, Peter Gutteridge stands as one of the era's most intense and shadowy figures. Despite being a founding member of The Clean and The Chills, Gutteridge would eschew indie-rock fame for the hypnotic and driving sounds of his later bands such as Snapper. Fittingly, it is Pure – Gutteridge's lone solo album of intimate home recordings – that serves as the most revealing and celebrated release of his career. As Peter Jefferies writes in the liner notes, "That's what's so good about Pure. Not only the songs, but the name, the name for the recording. It is as pure as you can get. That's the real deal, when it goes from nothing to something and he catches it on his machine." Originally released on cassette in 1989 on Xpressway, Pure documents Gutteridge's stunning use of 4-track as instrument. Featuring lo-fi pop gems and interstitial sketches, the LP combines densely layered keyboards and guitars, distorted drum machines and possessed-sounding vocals to create a truly singular work of undistilled artistic vision. While Gutteridge denied that he was the architect of the "Dunedin Sound," Pure sits comfortably next to the most revered Flying Nun releases of its time. Shifting exquisitely from churning rattle to an airy ease without losing momentum, these twenty-one songs hold a lasting place in the canon of DIY music. Recommended for fans of Syd Barrett, Jim Shepard and early Fad Gadget. Includes drawing chosen by Peter's family.

At the time, being the first of the many semi-official bootlegs and live releases that Swans put out over the years, Feel documents the 1987 European tour for Children of God, recorded quite well on a professional walkman by the band's sound engineer. The track list exclusively focuses on Children material, so the album has much of the same general variety as its parent release, though all of the edges are a little rougher. "Blood and Honey," for example, maintains the synth-string arrangements from the album as well as Jarboe's low, haunting vocals, but the louder instrumental breaks have a stronger power here. In the meantime, already overpowering songs like "New Mind" and "Beautiful Child" rage all that much harder in a live arena, with Gira holding little back, if at all. At the same time, a tune like "Trust Me" maintains the newer Gira's commanding-yet-controlled croon amidst the more textured, elegant arrangement, though he definitely starts to let himself go more towards the end. Naming every highlight would take nearly forever, but special mention has to be made of "Children of God," featuring a fantastic call-and-response vocal tradeoff between Jarboe and Gira while the band brilliantly backs them up, and versions of "Sex God Sex" and especially "Blind Love," which make the album versions seem like gentle walks in the park by comparison. Another definite bonus on Feel is the demonstration of Swans' hitherto hard-to-find sense of humor: "Willy in Ravensburg" is a recording of a PA tape of Willie Nelson with drunken audience response, while a number of tracks near the end document a variety of performance goofs and improvisations, including some muffled but amusing audience banter at points. ~ Ned Raggett

'Remember A Stranger' is the debut full-length album by Singaporean shoegaze / dream pop band motifs.

The album straddles two themes of fading memories and coping with loss. The songs in this record tell a story of Elspeth's memories of growing up in Singapore.

The cover art draws parallels by capturing the nostalgia of childhood through the experimentation of colours and textures to generate a hazy vintage effect. 
The original photo was taken off an island in Kaohsiung, Taiwan by the band's guitarist JJ.

Please enjoy the record and we hope our music connects with you in its own special way.

Songies = songs that are relatively short, sweet, and to the point ~ they're a little *weird* while also being very song-y (i.e. the classic "verse, chorus, verse" structure, etc.) In this album, I got a lil more creative with my tunings and time signatures<3 It's also more cohesive/album-like than my previous albums~~ The feelz of it is good for walking around a cemetery alone on a partly cloudy 70-something degree day ☼ :-)

Sleaford Mods are pleased to announce the release of their cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ iconic single “West End Girls”, with all profits from the track going to the homeless charity Shelter.

The Nottingham duo created a version of the 1986 classic between tours for their latest album UK GRIM, and then sought the blessing of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe to put out the track.

Not only did Sleaford Mods’ “West End Girls” meet with the pair’s approval, but the Pet Shops Boys were inspired to remix the cover which will feature as one of the tracks on the limited edition single.

Hifi Sean has also contributed an Acid House meets Hi-NRG remix for the release, while Sleaford Mods’ own Andrew Fearn has added a heady vocoder led mix under his solo guise of Extnddntwrk.

Clearly apparent from their own minimal approach to music, the Pet Shop Boys have always been an important influence for Sleaford Mods, with Chris and Neil’s ability to merge sophisticated electronics and rich character often serving as a lodestar for the partnership between producer Andrew Fearn and front man Jason Williamson.

This esteem for the Pet Shop Boys can be clearly heard on their take on “West End Girls”, although Jason and Andrew have not flinched from creating a version of the song which is truly Sleaford Mods.

If the original is a sophisticated exposé of the heartlessness of 80s Thatcherite Britain while also paying tribute to people’s ability to shine despite living in brutal times, then Sleaford Mods’ have skillfully distressed the shimmering classic with sharp synths and scuffed-up vocals, offering a sense of the resilience now required to survive in our disconnected and dysfunctional days.

“’West End Girls’ is a song that’s very close to my heart, my coming-of-age track in so many ways.” says Andrew Fearn of the original.
Jason Williamson continues, “I’ve been listening to the Pet Shop Boys albums ‘Please’ and ‘Actually’ a lot, the music still fits this landscape so well. When Andrew suggested we cover “West End Girls”, it was important to honour the track’s brilliance. So when Neil and Chris gave the track their blessing, our tiny minds were blown, and when we received their remix… it was almost too much, it was brilliant!”

Neil/Chris added… “Sleaford Mods have brought East End boys back to the West End streets for a great cause and we love their new version.”
Sleaford Mods “West End Girls” cover will be available on a limited edition 12-inch with remixes from the Pet Shop Boys, HiFi Sean and Extnnddntwrk, which can be pre-ordered now ahead of release on 15th December. All tracks will be available to stream from 21st November.

Profits generated by the single are being donated by Sleaford Mods to the charity Shelter, details of their work can be found at www.shelter.org.uk

TRIO SR9 is composed of French classical percussionists (Paul Changarnier, Nicolas Cousin and Alexandre Esperet) from the Conservatoire de Lyon. They play orchestral percussions such as marimba but also plenty unique "second-hand" objects collected in a breaker's yard (crystal glasses, metals, etc).

Their Déjà vu project was created after an encounter with French composer and arranger Clément Ducol. Together they decided to embark on a project which would see them taking on pop hits of the kind that are produced in mega studios on the other side of the Atlantic and dazzle with a thousand lights and special effects. They wanted to make pop without machines, guitars, bass or synths. 100% Acoustic.

This interest in global hits by the likes of Rihanna, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, Franck Ocean or Pharrell Williams might come as a surprise to some, but it’s basically pretty logical for these three conservatoire-educated mavericks, who are all well aware of the fact that many classical themes were adapted from popular dance tunes that have been long-forgotten.

They have invited talented singers such as Blick Bassy, Camille, Camélia Jordana, Malik Djoudi and Sandra Nkaké to cover those global hits.
All have inspired the music with their own particular energy, tenderness, the grain of their voice and their craziness, and a thousand other nuances that play their part in that troubling sensation that English speakers express using the French term déjà vu. 

In the spring of 1977, two young Belgian musicians who call themselves Aksak Maboul (aka Marc Hollander & Vincent Kenis) set out to record an album, "Onze danses pour combattre la migraine", in which they playfully fused and deconstructed all kinds of genres to create their own musical world. Three years later, Hollander founded the Crammed label. Many ingredients came in and out of the Aksak blender : fake jazz, electronics, imaginary African & Balkan music, minimalism... there were even pre-techno aspects such in as Saure Gurke and its characteristic keyboard stab pattern which will mysteriously find its way into many classic Detroit techno tracks some ten years later. Onze Danses became a cult album, and seems retrospectively to have mapped out the way for the various directions which have been explored by Crammed during the next two decades.

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of Juana Molina’s breakthrough album Segundo (2000), here’s a very special reissue, remastered from the original tapes, and augmented by a rich booklet recounting the eventful start of Juana’s musical career, and containing numerous notes, anecdotes, original drawings and previously unreleased pictures.
Segundo is the album which started Juana Molina’s international trajectory as a musician, and its making was a wild story: after dropping her highly-successful career as a TV comedian, and signing with a major company who got her to record her debut album, Juana set out to find her own direction in music and started working on a new record (aptly titled Segundo). This journey took four years, and included sessions in Argentina and in several houses where she lived on the US West Coast, the involvement of several possible producers and of four successive record labels, who each had their own idea of what Juana should be doing... Juana remained untamed, forged ahead and, during the course of this sometimes complicated process, developed her own method and her own characteristic sound. She writes:
From the moment “Segundo” took shape, I began to walk a path that I have not yet abandoned. That is why it’s so important to me. I feel that this was the seed of everything I have done ever since. I discovered the flair of composing in real time, the charm of discarding the very idea of demos, the grace of documenting these moments of searching and finding. Everything else became dispensable.

In 2000, Juana finally self-released Segundo in Argentina. The album semi-accidentally made its way to Japan where it very spectacularly took off, and was eventually picked up by the Domino label in 2003. The reception of Segundo set Juana Molina on course for starting to perform around the globe, garnering a large, devoted fan base, and going on to record five more extraordinary studio albums (including the widely-acclaimed Halo in 2017) and a live record (ANRMAL, 2020).
All this and much more is narrated in the lovely booklet, which includes notes by several people who were involved in these events (including Bruce Springsteen producer Ron Aniello) and by early adopters such as KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, Domino Recording’s Laurence Bell (who discovered Segundo by chance, in Will Oldham’s car), and David Byrne who, as soon as he heard the album for the first time, invited Juana to open for him on his 2003 US tour. 
 

For Patrick Flegel, Cindy Lee is more than just a recording music project. It is the culmination of a lifelong exploration of art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. "Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life," explains Flegel, "and also provided the soundtrack to the best times." Following the dissolution of Canadian experimental indie band Women, Flegel would delve deeper into songwriting that bends further toward high atmospherics and bracing melodies – a unique space where splendor naturally collides with experimentation. Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder. What's Tonight To Eternity, Cindy Lee's fifth long-form offering, showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs. Recorded at Flegel's Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide. Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer / drummer's early recordings as well as her look and style. "I found a deep interest and comfort in Karen's story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age and being a misfit looking for connection. The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her has to do with what is hidden, what is unknown." What's Tonight To Eternity remains a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs. Closing with the song "Heavy Metal" (dedicated to the memory of former Women bandmate Chris Reimer) and adorned by Andrea Lukic's Journal of Smack artwork, the album continues the bold and rewarding path on which Cindy Lee has embarked.

Cindy Lee, the performance and songwriting vehicle of Canadian artist Patrick Flegel (who fronted influential indie group Women earlier), previously stunned listeners with Act Of Tenderness, a heart-wrenching statement informed by the noirish core of celebrity, and has continued to enchant with every album, including the startling What's Tonight To Eternity released earlier this year.

Model Express originally appeared as a self-released edition of 100 gold cassettes. The arch, filmic drama of Cindy Lee's songwriting – realized with keyboards, guitars, aching voice and collaged, lo-fi production – traverses a wide range of emotional and sonic terrain. The red velvet psych-pop of "What Can I Do" gives way to the fluid "Diamond Ring" like radio bursts from space. Model Express finds Flegel at both their most experimental and immediately melodic, and this first-time vinyl release recognizes the collected tracks as a pillar in the Cindy Lee catalogue.

Limited white vinyl specifications. This is the second solo album since the masterpiece "Recomecar" by Tim Bernardes, the vocalist / guitarist of São Paulo's soul / guitar rock band O Terno, who is attracting attention as the bearer of the new generation of Brazilian music. His father is Maurício Pereira, a musician who is also a member of Os Mulheres Negras, which was also recorded in the Brazilian compi "Outro Tempo: Electronic And Contemporary Music From Brazil 1978-1992" of , and his unusual musical sense is the same. Outstanding in the generation. It has been praised by the original Tropicália, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa and Tom Ze, as well as recent free folk music such as Fleet Foxes and Devendra Banhart from outside Brazil, as well as David Byrne. He also participated in O Terno's 7inch release on in Japan with Shintaro Sakamoto and Devendra Banhart. Love songs, sadness songs, change songs, and inclusive singing voices resonate with emotions and provide healing. Expected work that will be able to enjoy the talent that can be called the flag bearer of this Neutropicaria!

Gather your loved ones, Together is here. Duster’s fourth album is a 13-song exploration of comfortable, interplanetary goth. A sonic vaseline of submerged guitars, solder-burned synths, and over-driven rhythm tracks. “I know people say, ‘Oh Duster music so sad, we've even said it ourselves before,” Clay Parton said. “But it's a lot more like absurdism than nihilism.”

A tortured songwriter and struggling addict who jolted the tired Chicago DIY scene with his own brand of primal despair, Trey Gruber and his band Parent were on track to join the ranks of Twin Peaks, Mild High Club, and Whitney. His death in 2017 at the age of 26 brought it all to a halt. In his final years Trey wrote and recorded hundreds of previously unheard demos, dandelions in the cracked concrete of 21st century disconnect, an alphabet’s worth of which have been compiled by his family and friends for his only album: Herculean House Of Cards.

Taking the trend of putting additional letters in otherwise straightforward band names to new extremes is Meernaa aka California hotshot Carly Bond who has already worked with the likes of Luke Temple, Jerry Paper and Helado Negro but now presents her second full-length album - a moody, inventive thing taking in R&B, jazz, art rock and pop along the way.

‘i,i’ is Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If 'For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; ‘Bon Iver’ the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and '22, A Million', a blistering, "crazy energy" Summer record, ‘i,i’ completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music.The sales and accolades are well-known - multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds its way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on ‘i,i’ that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music - and band, and themes, and creative space - are bigger than ever.

‘i,i’ is Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If 'For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; ‘Bon Iver’ the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and '22, A Million', a blistering, "crazy energy" Summer record, ‘i,i’ completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music.The sales and accolades are well-known - multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds its way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on ‘i,i’ that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music - and band, and themes, and creative space - are bigger than ever.

22, A Million is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. The album's 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love's torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.