Bon Iver

Bon Iver, a.k.a. Justin Vernon, is set to release his new Blood Bank EP January 20 on Jagjaguwar. I managed a listen and it's basically what you'd expect after For Emma, Forever Ago (which a number of people have been putting on best-of lists, but I'm pretty sure I heard it last year), quiet, sad songs with Vernon's falsetto snaking around hushed acoustic guitar, making for an accurate example of what his Myspace describes him as - Neo-Soul. "Beach Baby" finds some warm slide guitar phrases while "Babys" contains an urgent-sounding piano throughout. The real winner is certainly "Woods," which one immediately notices due to the auto-tune on his voice. He's played around with this before [overdubbed vocal in the chorus of "The Wolves (Act I & II)"], but this is literally an entire nearly 5 minute song of his voice playing with the pitch correction, folded over itself in a sort of hymnal/R&B exercise sort of like Imogen Heap's super-processed "Hide and Seek" (which I totally forgot about til just now).

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Justin Vernon had released some stuff under his own name in 2006, the 7-track EP/Mini LP Hazeltons. "Frail Sail" is pretty great, as is "Game Night," prominently featuring drums. That's right, it's not deathly quiet.