Album: Bon Iver, iTunes Session (iTunes)

Invited to spend a day recording an iTunes session, Justin Vernon chose to remake several tracks from the Bon Iver album, along with a version of Bjork's "Who Is It?" whose blend of skittering drum programme, beatboxing, electric piano, strings and horns recalls Sufjan Stevens.

It's most notable, however, for its lyrical clarity, despite the precise employment of words like "Noachide" and "latchet". Though longer than the originals, the songs occupy much the same musical territory, Vernon's possessed falsetto adrift amidst oceans of triumphant dejection, wispy horns and guitar furnishing the most discreet filigree detail. For songs so impermeable of meaning, it's all impossibly moving, an exercise in the power of mood and music. 

Download: Who Is It?; Holocene; Michicant