Before Justin Vernon begins work on another Bon Iver album, the celebrated songsmith will release an album with fellow Wisconsinites and former tourmates Collections of Colonies of Bees. Pitchfork recently sat down with Vernon, who discussed the project (read the full interview): "Yeah, I have a new project called the Volcano Choir with my favorite band, Collections of Colonies of Bees-- if the world was perfect, they would be as big as U2. It's this really liberating thing-- like I'm in a new band. We started collaborating three years ago and just this year we started to realize we had nine or 10 tracks almost done. So we got together up at my studio and finished it. I sing on it, but there aren't a lot of lyrics. It's mostly choir stuff. It's definitely more on the experimental side of things. I don't know if we'll play shows because it's all really textural and landscape-y, but I think it's coming out in September."
Collections of Colonies of Bees remind me a bit of Explosions In The Sky in how they create instrumental and borderline experimental soundscapes. The video above gives you a good sense of the group, but despite the title, I don't believe Bon Iver actually appear (but I'm at work with the video in the corner of my screen, so I could be wrong). And yes, Volcano Choir is a very bad ass name.