The Witzard

Paradice 1 by OQ Late last month, I received a mysterious cold-sent email from a man named Liam O'Brien simply titled "Hi From Wisconsin." I've since learned O'Brien has previously played and released music with Holy Sheboygan! , Moon Ruin, and his namesake, Liam O'Brien's Faithless Followers . For his latest endeavor, Liam has joined forces with fellow Wisconsinite and multi-instrumentalist Cole Quamme ("qua-mee") of The Fatty Acids ; " OQ is Liam O'Brien & Cole Quamme in collaboration with an array of Midwestern, US -based contributors," reads their "short" press release. While amidst the earliest stages of recording in 2016, Cole Quamme reached out to his fellow Milwaukee Folk/Bluegrass peers to see what they could, potentially, do with his unique style of "Bubu" -leaning beats. Quamme was, eventually, connected with Liam O'Brien , who morphed his inter-locking rhythms into full-fledged comp...

"[ Bon Iver 's] a fucking genius! I'd never seen nor heard of him in my life, and I looked up, and I was in a fucking 5 x 5 room with a white guy, smoking weed... and his voice is like something I've never heard, and he's using words that are far from common. Within 20 minutes, I realized why Kanye had him there." - Rick Ross (Billboard) Justin Vernon probably never imagined that his high-pitched primary band, Bon Iver would ever garner so much widespread acclaim, let alone 4 Grammy nominations. 2011 was quite arguably The Year of Bon Iver ; Over the course of the year, Vernon somehow managed to strike up a lucrative friendship with Kayne & Jay-Z , harmonize alongside Nicki Minaj , appear on Gayngs' remix album - "Affiliyated," collaborate with The National and Dub Master James Blake , and hawking Bushmills whiskey. On top of all that, his long-awaited follow-up album (Bon Iver, Bon Iver) was released on Jagjaguwar . That very album ...