Volcano Choir's "Byegone" arranged for string quartet, piano, guitar drums

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(Link to soundcloud, in case you can’t see the embed)

Here’s a recording of an arrangement I made for Nonsemble, of Volcano Choir’s Byegone. I was a huge fan of Pele back in the day, and have some treasured vinyl copies of their stuff which still gets regular spins at our place, mostly on sunny Saturday mornings… I subsequently got into Collections of Colonies of Bees, as well as All Tiny Creatures. So when I heard that some of these crazy math-rock luminaries were teaming up with Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver fame) back when Unmap came out, I was pretty much sold before I heard any of it.

The new record Repave is definitely a little less adventurous, but I still really dig it. Byegone (the lead single… I think?) is a pretty unique song in the way it combines these huge euphoric choruses with really free-form sections. The structure barely repeats itself at all, at least never exactly. For some reason when I heard it, I felt like it was just screaming for a chamber arrangement.

It was pretty fun to arrange it, especially the challenge of translating the layers-upon-layers of guitars into the strings and piano. As usual the Nonsemble kids nailed it brilliantly, and Turi Agostino offered to record and mix the song which was super kind of him.

We have a blast playing this live because of that massive cathartic chorus, so you will most likely see us play it at a few of our shows this year.

Speaking of which, the next two are:
Feb 8, The Waiting Room, West End.
March 22, SYC Studios, Woolloongabba.