Volcano Choir 'Unmap' (JAGJAGUAWAR) Released 21/09/09

There’s a moment on ‘Island, IS’, the third song of nine on Volcano Choir’s debut album Unmap, where the delicate scaffold of spiraling, looped guitars and lightly brushed percussion rises to a peak and suddenly falls away. A cool breeze blows through the void for a second or two before the melody returns dominant and the song’s airy groove continues. There’s nothing particularly overblown about such a slight shift, yet these few seconds are utterly capturing. And therein lies Unmap’s peculiar charm, a quiet and understated ability to grasp the attention when least expected.

In the interest of independent thought, it seems appropriate to attempt to leave aside for a moment the pedigree of its constituent members – Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and fellow Wisconsinites Collections of Colonies of Bees. Of course, with an element as utterly distinctive as Vernon’s haunting falsetto it’s difficult to ignore the connection entirely, but the noise Volcano Choir create is ethereal, intangible and often quite lovely, regardless of its provenance. Disregarding the frosty cover art, while Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago was indisputably a winter album, haunted by the ghosts of the forest where it was written, Unmap is warmer, more autumnal. The subtle rise and fall dynamic of ‘Still’, overlaid with crystalline drones, is stained a deep russet, and the gradually rising decay of ‘Seeplymouth’ mimics the leaf-fall at the start of October.

Aside from Vernon’s voice – which in its purest form is a weapon rarely used here – any resemblance to his other project is limited to atmosphere alone. Both ‘Seeplymouth’ and ‘Island, IS’ pivot around swirling, Reich- and Glass-inspired minimalism and slow building guitar dissonance, lent extra weight by scattershot jazz percussion. At several points this blend of pastoral folksiness and swelling noise makes you forget this isn’t a record by Do Make Say Think, such is its curiously restrained force. It’s then that the name Volcano Choir seems most appropriate, when a latent energy seethes just beneath the surface before cracking its smooth veneer in a burst of raw, molten warmth.