Bon Iver's Religious Non-Religious Music

Welcome to the latest installment of Five Albums, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we discuss a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.

We’re in that seasonally transitional time in early April, when it’s kind of cold outside and you don’t know what to wear or—in some cases—listen to. We can solve that! And, as it happens, most of the albums we discuss this week document some kind of transitional phase, too—whether an angelic songwriter basking in the high of the club for the first time, a virtuoso bassist wrestling uncomfortably with stylistic shifts or, in the case of one artist (see if you can guess who), exploring his own pursuit of god (or “god”). Andy’s Must Hear pick, though, has a simpler premise: just two wild electronic geniuses sussing out communal freedom together. Sometimes it’s like that, too.