Bon Iver

Sound: A raspy yearning of clever lyricism and gentle singing
Album: For Emma, Forever Ago
Label:  Jagjaguwar Records

Walden, Except Colder
Justin Vernon watched as his band, DeYarmond Edison, dissolved after the group relocated to North Carolina. Still driven to create music but without a clear path forward, his solution was to retreat back to his Wisconsin homeland. Once there, Vernon spent the next four, cold, snowy months in his father’s remote, Northern Wisconsin cabin. His album For Emma, Forever Ago is the product of this hibernation, wherein Vernon did little else but the chores necessary to survival—chopping firewood, hunting, shoveling snow—and sequester himself into 12-hour sessions with his guitar and collection of antiquated recording equipment. Like Jack London, but better prepared. Or like Thoreau’s Walden, but without trips over to Emerson’s place to chew the cud. 

The Album: An Opus
The result is a striking collection of songs that blend together to a cohesive whole that puts the listener into that cabin, alone, fighting off the cold. Vernon’s vocals tell a story of loss and frustration that is universally relatable and entirely his own. The folksy guitar and sparse layering create a haunting sound that’s supplemented by the imperfections in the recording. The album is released under the name Bon Iver (pronounced “bon eevair”), an adaptation of the French phrase for “good winter.”     

“Flume,” the opener, sets the tone for Emma. Clever lyricism and gentle singing abound. Vernon sings, “Love is all maroon / lapping lakes like leery loons, leaving rope burns—reddish ruse.” This imagery encapsulates the album: the maroon burns of a saddening loss and the bitter ruse of its permanence proved fleeting. “Skinny Love,” the standout candidate for a single, combines a catchy guitar rhythm and bluesy vocals, building from Vernon’s high pitched croon of, “Come on skinny love, last the year,” to the wrenching last refrain of, “Now all your love was wasted? Then who the hell was I?”   

A Rock Show, Except Seated
A small band joins Vernon onstage to accompany his quivering falsetto and guitar melodies. The nature of the songs on Emma demand a tender, emotive delivery, and Bon Iver’s set at the Nectar Lounge March 26th was nothing if not intimate. Vernon sits on stage as if he’s still channeling the feeling of being secluded in a hunting cabin in the Midwest, straining through lengthy recording sessions. The sitting makes sense, but it’s confounding when the band launches into the fast, driving beat of “The Wolves (Act I and II)” and Vernon rocks in his chair as though grounded to it throughout the performance. Perhaps the success of this project will yield an upbeat album he can stand up and play the next time around.

For Emma, Forever Ago, was re-released early 2008 on Jagjaguwar Records.