Whatever you may think of Justin Vernon, you have to respect him for his love of collaboration. From Gayngs to working with James Blake, he definitely loves to be creatively challenged.
Now Mr. Vernon is taking on a new collaboration with hip hop artist Astronautalis, Bon Iver's S. Carey and Ryan Olson from Gayngs and Polica. This is not Justin Vernon's first collaboration with an hip hop artist. Vernon worked with Kanye West on his album Dark Twisted Fantasy a couple of years ago. The three started working on this project this past weekend in Vernon's Eau Claire studio. According to a City Pages interview with Astronautalis aka Andy Bothwell, the two laid down 8 rough tracks, and 8 hours of freestyling, which was accompanied by some whiskey drinking.
"A lot of my fans are like, 'Oh this is going to be amazing: Astronautalis rapping and Justin singing choruses.' It's not going to be that," Bothwell stresses. "I'm sure that all of Justin's fans are going to be like 'Oh, it's a new Bon Iver record and there's these other guys.' Everyone's fans respectively are going to expect certain things." -Bothwell (via City Pages)
There is no name for this group or a release date for the project, but expect to hear something in a few weeks.
"I don't think it's going to be as long as you think. Ryan's goal is for it to be made faster than the Polica record, and that was made in just a few weeks. All of us are hell-bent on getting it out really quickly, and hopefully to find the time to play some shows for it as well. I think you'll hear it sooner than you think, and I kinda just wanna leave it at that. It's such a far stretch for a lot of us musically. I think everyone should abandon their expectations of what it's going to be, because it's probably going to be very far off."
Read more about this project over at the City Pages.
