Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner — driving forces behind indie rock groups Bon Iver and The National, respectively — have debuted the first music from their side project, Big Red Machine. Although the name pays homage to the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, the duo is ironically kicking things off by providing the theme music for a podcast about soccer.
American Fiasco, which debuted Monday (June 4), is a 12-episode tale that chronicles the failures of the U.S. men’s soccer team during the 1998 World Cup. Spoiler alert: they lost, but the podcast details exactly how the team arrived at their upsetting pitfalls.
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Listen to the first episode of American Fiasco below, in which Vernon and Dessner’s ambient contribution can be heard around the 2:45 mark.