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Hear S. Carey's Graceful New Song, Performed Live Beside A Roaring Fire

Sean Carey's music is awash in delicate, aching intimacy — no surprise, given that he's learned from a master. The singer and multi-instrumentalist, who records under the name S. Carey, is a permanent member of Bon Iver, whose sound can be eggshell-fragile, thunderously triumphant or eerily otherworldly, sometimes within a single song.

Carey is set to release a new album, Hundred Acres, on Feb. 23. To prepare, he's assembled a lovely performance video alongside his band (bassist Jeremy Boettcher, pedal-steel ace Ben Lester and guitarist Zach Hanson), with whom he performs a tender new song called "Fool's Gold." Shot beside a roaring fire at The Hive in Eau Claire, Wisc., the live recording stays faithful to the version you'll hear on Hundred Acres; both find Carey eschewing his usual piano for an acoustic guitar.

It's a wonderfully ingratiating performance, even before you soak up Lester and Hanson's handsome and impeccably chosen Green Bay Packers garb. And it hints at the considerable power of Hundred Acres, which streamlines Carey's sound without sacrificing a shred of his grace or inventiveness.

Hundred Acres comes out Feb. 23 via Jagjaguwar.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)