13. Repave / Volcano Choir

Volcano Choir will always be known as Justin Vernon and his friends.  On the band's first album, Unmap, Vernon and his fellow Wisconsinites made an unconventional and meandering record of guitar strings, choir swells, and electronic bleeps.  The music slowly revealed a placeless beauty, somewhere in the void, where matter and sound are still taking shape, still fighting to combine with the emerging topography.  On their second album, Repave, the songs finally make landfall and the result is a strong, cohesive, experimental rock record.

The D Man watched a seemingly uneventful but excellent live performance of "Comrade" and shares his observations below:

• 0:00 - 0:25:  We are heading up a freight elevator somewhere inside an old tannery in Milwaukee.  The band wants us to know they are unassuming, authentic, and deeply-connected to their Wisconsin roots.  Or maybe the rent was cheap.
• 0:25 - 0:45:  The band's signature bloops and bleeps and instrumental doodles invite us down the hallway.  Is there another band that works so hard to sound so nonchalant?
• 0:45:  Two things happen.  The warm acoustic guitars kick in, which say hey, this is going to be an organic experience.  But right on their heels, Vernon starts singing with auto-tuned voice modulation, which says hey, this is going to merge the past with the present.  This tactic has worked very well for Bon Iver's ageless but in-the-moment sound. 
• 1:14:  Vernon lifts his hands to his head and reveals a punk-rock bracelet that he could have lifted from someone in Rancid.  Just because he plays with these guys in flannel and button-down shirts, doesn't mean he didn't party with Kanye, ya know?
• 1:26:  Vernon slides into his falsetto, which can slay dragons and bed the prettiest of ladies.  Remember, this is the same guy that wrote and sang "Beth/Rest," the greatest indie soft-rock song of all time.
• 1:49:  The drums pick up and the band plateaus into brilliant vistas.
• 2:16:  Like the best Bon Iver tracks, the musical comedown is even more powerful than the ascent.  In the negative space, Vernon's soul-crushed voice and the acoustic guitars' little curly-cues are even more affecting.
• 2:54:  Vernon messes with his voice even more.  He has found a way to have four signature vocal approaches: the guttural, low-end menace, the heart-wrenching falsetto, the modulated yelp, and the quiet folkie whisper.
• 3:24:  Here we go again: to the mountains! Large trees, heavy snows, endless nights, and crushing heartbreak to follow.
• 3:52: By now you should have noticed Vernon's hair.  Look, this is a dude who lived in a cabin for four months, killed deer with his bare hands, and recorded one of the loneliest sounding folk records of all time.  It's just hair, man.
• 3:59: A modulated F-bomb doesn't count.
• 4:04:  Vernon's intensity leads him to a brief moment of jazz hands.  And we close with more bloops and bleeps and instrumental doodles.