After revealing that they were working with Justin Vernon on their sophomore album via Twitter last year, it seems that U.K. folk trio the Staves have been pretty quiet about the new project -- that is, until now.

To announce their new album, 'If I Was,' to the world, Jessica, Camilla and Emily Stavely-Taylor have released a video documenting the making of their second record with the Bon Iver frontman. Set in Vernon's April Base Studios in Eau Claire, Wisc., the Staves and Vernon talk about how the collaboration started out, evolving the Staves' sound and just becoming a little family.

"Because I care about them so much, I wanted to invite them here," Vernon says in the video, "which just seems like such a safe place to sprawl out their ideas and sort of like give the runway and the tools and watch them grow into making a record."

After hearing one of the Staves' EPs, Vernon brought the sisters onto his 2013 U.S. tour as an opening act. And the rest is history.

"When I heard the Staves singing, it's literally physiological," he said. "Their sisterhood, the relation and the combination of their voices [are] unlike anything I've ever heard."

So the Staves moved to snowy Wisconsin for some time to make an album that they believe would have never happened with Vernon and his crew.

"I think we wanted the first album to be an honest representation of themselves," Jessica said. "But I think ideas and ambitions have grown of what we can achieve in the studio. Having horns and having these gorgeous textures in the songs, I think, really enhances the drama and the magic and the emotions of those songs and allow our album to go to a place we felt we couldn't achieve with it just being the three of us and the guitar."

'If I Was' will release on Feb. 2 in the U.K. and Europe and in North America at a later, to-be-announced date.

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