Acclaimed indie-folk singer Bon Iver has spoken about his recent collaboration with Kanye West.
Kanye West has always been open minded. One of the hallmarks of his career is that the rapper has always taken risks, with sessions for his upcoming album including some surprising guest appearances.
Best known for his work with pastoral acoustic types Bon Iver, singer Justin Vernon is set to appear on the new album. An odd choice for a guest star, the songwriter worked extensively with the rapper in the studio.
Completing one track, Vernon was whisked out to a Hawaiian island for the sessions. All of which is a long way from Bon Iver's debut album, famously laid down in a broken down shack in the middle of nowhere.
Speaking to Pitchfork, Bon Iver revealed more about the sessions. "I was in New York in January and I got a call from my manager and he said Kanye West wanted to maybe use "Woods" as a sample." I was like, "Yes." A week later there were more murmurings and eventually I just got on the phone with Kanye" he said.
"We ended up talking for a half hour about music and how we were fans of each other and Avatar. It was a really pleasant, easy-going conversation between two people that are pretty psyched about music."
"So I head out there and he plays me the track and it sounds exactly like how you want it to sound: forward moving, interesting, light-hearted, heavy-hearted, fucking incredible sounding jam. It was kind of bare so I added some choir-sounding stuff and then thicked out the samples with my voice" the singer continued.
"That whole first week I was there we worked on the 'Woods' song, which is called 'Lost in the World'. We were just eating breakfast and listening to the song on the speakers and he's like, "Fuck, this is going to be the festival closer." I was like, "Yeah, cool." It kind of freaked me out."
"After that first week he was like, "I want you to come back." So I came back a few weeks later and it was the same kind of thing, throwing ideas around-- there are a bunch of other songs I'd just throw down on, write a little hook, whatever. In the studio, he was referencing Trent Reznor, Al Green, the Roots - the fucking awesomest shit. It made total sense to me."
Kanye West is due to release his new album later this year.