Bon Iver (a.k.a. Justin Vernon) hasn't put out his own album since 2007, so there's a good chance some folks know him only as Kanye West's hook guy -- he sang on six songs off West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and showed up in New York and Austin to lurk around onstage, croon a few tunes, and make 'Ye look like a really good dancer. "Somewhere along the line, I forgot how to write songs," he tells Rolling Stone of his time since For Emma, Forever Ago. "I couldn't do it anymore with a guitar. It wasn't happening." This is clearly the evil influence of Bad Kanye.
So Vernon assembled a group of musicians including sax and pedal-steel pros and recorded a 10-track disc, due in June, that's a bit of a concept album: Each song is about a place. He describes "Perth" as "a Civil War-sounding heavy metal song" -- who is this guy, Lady Gaga? -- but remains cagey about the rest. If the album art looks anything like the above, we'll be really concerned.