Volcano Choir – Unmap (Jagjaguwar)
4/5
By: Alex Hibbert
After having one of the breakaway successes of last year with debut For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon’s next move was always likely to surprise. Rekindling his relationship with fellow Wisconsinites Collections Of Colonies Of Bees, Volcano Choir’s Unmap is certainly that. Built from dense sounds and colourful textures, in which the austere bite of Emma...'s winter months is evoked, but half revealed, half dreamed; as in dead leaves veining green. If that album was the sound of Vernon retreating into the wilderness, then this is the sound of his gradual return, building beauty from the dissonance of the wasting season in the texturing of guitars that spiral outwards and breezy, whispering falsetto.
‘Husks And Shells’ is the introduction to Unmap's gossamer like mood, a deft scenery of plucked acoustics that tumble around the band’s breathy husk. That it barely forms something that could be considered structure only hints at what's to come, as it’s the first of a series of pieces that rarely reveal themselves fully. ‘Dote’s' also hardly there, a whisper of vocal straining to overcome the flush of feedback humming in the fore. It announces itself quickly, then, as the furore subsides and twinkles instead, a foreign body - a deeper throb - emits from somewhere close by, pierces the warmth and extinguishes the song suddenly. What surprises most is that next track ‘And Gather’ does the same, Vernon’s voice exemplifying a texture, but barely forming full sounds atop electric guitar swinging pendulum like behind the band’s crushed harmony, suddenly ceasing.
It puts you in mind of Steve Reich, then Tortoise and early Animal Collective. Though these influences only appear fleetingly, this isn’t even a Justin Vernon – Bon Iver – album, it's solely Volcano Choir's. Slowly exposing itself, music that elicits different emotional responses and different satisfactions usually also reveals itself to be the most rewarding, and so it is with Unmap.
And if it’s the sylphlike moments that often entrance - as Volcano Choir draw you rapt into their world then vanish before your very eyes - in longer compositions the tricks repeated as song’s break away; dense layers suddenly subsiding to reveal singular wonderments. On ‘Seeplymouth’, as cascading guitars froth above the effervescent twinkle of solitary notes, suddenly it’s those desolate sounds that pulse harder, until they dominate the chaotic landscape, and the effect’s completely beguiling. ‘Islands, IS’, the song that announced this album’s arrival amid scattered guitars and Vernon’s bubbling lyric, works best when the compound suddenly fractures. Vernon’s lyric, “your old tits, on your hard drive” rings out, and you realise the sentiment that characterises the flushes of sound throughout isn’t supposed to be big, clever, poignant, it’s just there. Volcano Choir's debut eventually exposes itself fully, and it's then that the collective, rather than the parts, make perfect sense.
Artists in this article: Volcano Choir, Bon Iver
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