BY JEFF SANFORD
Daily Arts Writer
Published September 20, 2009
On paper, Volcano Choir’s debut album seems primed to be this season’s indie sleeper that captures everyone’s attention, climbs up college radio charts and appears on various NBC sitcoms.
Volcano Choir
Unmap
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After all, Justin Vernon, who released an album that achieved all that less than a year ago under the moniker Bon Iver, is the group’s vocalist. Backing him are the guys from Collections of Colonies of Bees, a band that’s known for crafting ethereal post-rock and making albums with names like fa.ce (a.
Sounds great, right? Vernon’s gorgeous, do-no-wrong falsetto will ground his band’s more celestial wanderings, and a novel, accessible album will result. On paper, this logic is sound. In practice, not so much.
Describing Unmap is like trying to describe the hum of a washing machine. It sounds kind of like what Animal Collective would sound like if the members pulled a reverse Bob Dylan, tearing the cords from their laptops and mixers to rely on more organic instruments. Or maybe that’s completely wrong.
Justin Vernon grunts, squawks, moans and occasionally sings. The band complements him by ringing bells, pounding drums disjointedly and playing fluid, tapped guitar lines. This is not the formula for landing on the next episode of "House." But it does produce some moments of truly inspired, fascinating experimentation with plenty of melodic bite.
Justin Vernon’s old staple — the thickly layered falsetto — gets put to use from the onset. On opener “Husks and Shells,” his trademark wintry voice hovers over a mournful acoustic guitar line and, for a second, it seems like Unmap will unfold like a slightly looser, slightly weirder version of Vernon's For Emma, Forever Ago. But that’s not the case.
The next track, “Seeplymouth,” opens with a Reichian pulse and airy guitar fills and sounds more influenced by a music theory class than a Wisconsin cabin’s solitude. Vernon warbles incomprehensibly — and sometimes jarringly off key — but amid the track’s gentle pulsing, it’s really quite beautiful.
Other tracks don’t fare as well. “Dote” does just that, lingering over the same, unmoving ambient drone for three minutes. “And Gather” is a formless noise collage, combining off-beat handclaps with a nasally, whiny voice we haven’t heard from Vernon before. Tracks like this and “Mbira in the Morass,” in particular, give the impression that the boys were simply indulging every studio whim and committing them to record. They come off as thoughtless, and maybe that’s the point. But it’s more likely that they truly are just thoughtless.
Still, Unmap isn’t entirely comprised of free-spirited experimentation. The album’s clear standout, “Island, IS” has a somewhat conventional structure and even decipherable lyrics. A minimalist-inspired track, “Island, IS” showcases Chris Rosenau’s chaotic, tapped guitar work, which he’s been perfecting since his days in the underappreciated math-rock band Pele.
More grounded is “Still,” which is actually a re-imagining of the a capella song “Woods” from Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP. Already a gorgeous song, Volcano Choir’s rendition could’ve easily been on the wrong side of an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” scenario. But the tasteful arrangement gives the track depth and momentum and actually improves on the original.
Unmap could’ve benefited from a stricter editor and more focused songwriting, but it’s nice to hear Justin Vernon stretch his wings a bit with a group of accomplished, hyper-talented musicians. The results vary, but the album is a worthy listen all the same.
