Bon Iver: Blood Bank (Jagjaguwar)

To be honest, the Bon Iver album For Emma, Forever Ago which appeared in many of last year's "best of" lists didn't arrrive at Elsewhere and, busy with so many others, I let it slide right past me. So I have only heard the odd track off compilations or at friends' houses.

This four song EP by Justin Vernon and friends is exactly the kind of subtle and understated follow-up you might expect after that multi-layered but folk-based album: here are Brian Wilson-like arrangements (albeit for Vocoder-processed vocals on the slightly eerie Woods), an Anglo-folk approach which has Bon Iver a close cousin on Fleet Foxes (Blood Bank), quiet acoustic guitar and beguiling vocals, a sense of social dislocation, gliding steel guitar . . .

Disarming and charming.