Rob Moose has shared a new song featuring Bon Iver called “Marvel Room.” It’s the latest song from Moose’s Inflorescence EP, which includes the previously shared Phoebe Bridgers collaboration song “Wasted.” Out August 11, the EP also includes contributions from Brittany Howard, Emily King, and Sara Bareilles. Listen to “Marvel Room” below.

“Rob changed my life; I had never played with someone on his level,” Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon said in a statement. “When we started working together on arrangements, my own mind and creativity blossomed and I started seeing further into the universe of what was possible musically.
 It was a rare moment during the pandemic when I was able to do the vocals on this tune ‘Marvel Room.’ It was an old demo that I had lost track of. But Rob has access to pretty much everything I ever ‘try,’ and he found it and made this incredible arrangement. It brought new wind into the song and I was able to get excited and find the lyrics and melody.”

Moose also shared a statement of his own:

I met Justin in 2010, at the MusicNow Festival in Cincinnati. I was in town with yMusic, to perform with St. Vincent, and Aaron and Bryce Dessner were helping Justin put together a solo show to close out the festival. They mentioned that if any of us were willing to stick around for an extra day, we could join in for the show, and I leaped at the opportunity as a fervent fan of his work. I remember being asked, over post-show drinks at a dive bar, to put together some arrangements for a few songs, including “For Emma,” and setting my alarm for 6 a.m. to dive into the work. Playing that show with Justin was a career high point for me, and I was thrilled that it led to an invitation to work on the next Bon Iver album.

From that point forward, Justin has been a creative north star for me. There is something about him and his music that coaxes creative breakthroughs out of me. Whether by encouraging me to study the saxophone writing in Duke Ellington’s music, or to mimic the intrinsic counterpoint of the pedal steel, Justin has illuminated parallels and possibilities the value of which I would not have dreamed to recognize. His ability to selflessly synthesize the ideas of others in the context of his most personal artistic work is unparalleled in my experience.

“Marvel Room” started off as an idea for the i,i album, though it wasn’t one we approached together during the arranging process. I encountered it during a hard drive deep dive, and was intrigued by its propulsive rhythms and baritone incantations. I set out to embody the original voicings on strings, and as part of my arrangement study, I recorded the whole song three different times in pursuit of the perfect feel. It traveled with me from Harlem to Brooklyn, where we moved before my son was born. I leaned in to uncode elusive phrases in his scratch vocal, and we passed the track back and forth a few times as the form and content emerged. He asked me for more subdivided rhythm in places, and I wondered if he might throw in a touch of sparkle toward the end. A year later, I got the courage to cut an extended intro I’d done, and suddenly the track was finished.

Revisit Pitchfork’s review of i,i.