Melissa Giannini

I love this new distribution strategy that pairs music in the vinyl format with a digital download coupon. Bon Iver is doing it for his new EP, Blood Bank, which is scheduled for a January 20 release.

Compact discs are clunky and ugly, and offer a subpar listening experience compared to records. And now I can buy my records and listen to my music on the subway, too. Yay! Everyone wins! Except for CD manufacturers and Chuck “I do not own a record player” Klosterman.

So the music industry is adapting. And journalism is redefining itself as a purveyor of information, rather than a newspaper hawker. When are the car companies going to adapt and start investing in public transit and energy-efficient travel? And are there ways in which we can enjoy our daily “coffee and a newspaper” and long, winding, solo road trips in a manner that’s efficient and less wasteful?

When I first heard Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago … one of my immediate thoughts was that I wished I still had a car. The record is akin to scraping your windshield and gunning it out of a snow bank. It’s like wiping those little visibility circles on your steamed-up windows so you can just get going on your way, blind spot be damned. I hear the new EP is still wintry, but it’s more of a celebration of those rare glimpses of sunshine that you sometimes get toward the end of January.

Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) played two of the new songs — “Blood Bank” and “Babys” — at Bowery Ballroom this past summer. And if they’re any indication of what the album will be like, it sounds like Blood Bank might be a lot more keyboardy and a little more rocking, possibly like Damien Jurado’s raucous I Break Chairs follow-up to the hushed contemplation of his Ghost of David.

By the way, Village Voice’s Sound of the City blog did a good job documenting what the Bowery show was like.

Here’s the upcoming EP’s track listing:
1. Blood Bank
2. Beach Baby
3. Babys
4. Woods

And here’s what it’s going to look like:

A couple people caught the new songs on video.

Here’s “Blood Bank”:

And here’s “Babys”:

Bon Iver is playing three sold-out (nuts!) shows in New York next month: December 10 and 11 at Town Hall and December 12 at Music Hall of Williamsburg.