Best described as 'digital soul music', a friendly collaboration between esteemed songwriter Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame and The National's Aaron Dessner gradually developed into a far-reaching musical community and a soundtrack of melancholy electro ballads and de-constructed R&B hymns.
Vernon had originally started out with indie-folk group DeYarmond Edison but he disappeared to a cabin in the Wisconsin woods where he re-emerged as Bon Iver and crafted his classic 2007 album 'For Emma, Forever Ago'. He went on to work with Kanye West and reached number two in the US charts with '22, A Million'. Dessner, meanwhile, steadily helped transform The National from a lo-fi, New York garage band into an epic, morose, indie rock colossus with landmark records 'Boxer' and 'High Violet'.
It was first suggested the pair unite for the 'Dark Was the Night' charity album in 2009 and after Dessner sent over random, homemade instrumental music titled 'Big Red Machine', Vernon completed the track by adding lyrics and vocals, unwittingly kickstarting a fruitful new partnership.
Named after the nickname given to the Cincinnati Reds baseball team of the 1970s, they teamed up again with Dessner's twin brother Bryce to launch the PEOPLE streaming service and music community in 2016. As part of the project they released four new Big Red Machine tracks built around dreamy, lo-fi, patchwork beats and Vernon's trademark ethereal falsetto. The PEOPLE digital platform was designed as a place for raw sparks of ideas to evolve and where musicians could share thoughts and contacts, and in that spirit a full, self-titled Big Red Machine album later arrived in 2018 through Jagjaguwar. Featuring contributions from Lisa Hannigan, Phoebe Bridgers, The Staves, This Is The Kit and Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Perry, it was typically full of delicate ambient loops and atmospheric, glacial pop experiments, and won a heap of praise from critics.
