WHEN Bon Iver revealed the latest track ’33 GOD’ from their highly anticipated forthcoming album ’22, A Million’, we were not expecting to hear the soulful tones of Paolo Nutini to crop up halfway through. But yes; that’s exactly what happens.
Lifting the line “we find God and religions” straight from Nutini’s popular song ‘Iron Sky’ for an appearance in the bridge, the Scottish crooner adds some soul to the new track, which is one of the most experimental to be heard from Bon Iver. It looks as though they are ready challenge expectations more than ever with this latest album as the folksy arrangements of the previous records are discarded in favour of something far more ambitious and intense in this instance.
Beginning with a piano ballad over synths and unusual vocal samples, the lush atmospherics of the song erupt into an electronic throb with a heavily distorted and fragmented backdrop. Nutini is also not the only one to play a part; Vernon has confirmed on Twitter that he also samples the Browns, Sharon Van Etten and Lonnie Holley throughout the track.
’22, A Million’ is Bon Iver’s first album in five years and looks to be their most intriguing to date. In their statement announcing its release, the band said: “it is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion and the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding … If ‘Bon Iver, Bon Iver’ built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.”
’33 GOD’ is the latest insight into the record, with the equally unusually named tracks ‘22 (OVER S∞∞N)’ and ‘10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄’ heard previously. ’22, A Million’ will be out on 30th September via Jagjaguwar. Check it out below:
