There’s no “i” in the title of the new Bon Iver single, “AUATC” (“Ate Up All Their Cake”). Though it’s a distinctly star-studded affair, and Justin Vernon himself is fresh off his first top 10 single (from Taylor Swift’s new album folklore), this track is very much a low-key, communal affair—more of a street protest than a grandstand speech. Sounding like an abstract, sample-wise update of Paul McCartney’s homespun early-1970s piano pop, “AUATC” arrives as a gracefully beguiling fake-out.

Vernon doesn’t even sound like Vernon here. His voice is neither his familiar falsetto or the burly bro-country rumble from Swift’s “exile,” but rather a piped-in, pitched-up flutter. And while there’s no mistaking at least one of the backing vocalists—you could pick out Bruce Springsteen’s roar over the crowd noise at a football game—these contributors, who also include Jenny Lewis and Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner, ultimately blend into a serene warmth that best serves the song as a whole. Where Bon Iver’s “PDLIF” was built on a 2012 experimental composition, “AUATC” cleverly recasts a 1990s civil rights anthem by James Taylor, “Shed a Little Light.” Creativity is cooperative, and “AUATC” is a gleaming embodiment of the anti-capitalistic ideals the band shared in an accompanying statement—including calls to support charities global, locally based, and nationwide. Sure beats celebrities singing “Imagine,” and hey, there’s plenty of cake to go around.