Review Summary: Beautiful madness.
It’s 2008 in the indie acoustic scene. Enter singer/songwriter Justin Vernon, better known as the face of his pet project, Bon Iver — a Wisconsin native with a broken heart he proudly wears on his sleeve. That year, he released his debut album under the Bon Iver name: For Emma, Forever Ago. In it, Vernon sets out to recreate the fragile, aching sorrow of the end of a relationship. The album was written in isolation, with Vernon alone in his father’s remote hunting cabin during the dead of winter and suffering from a nasty bout of mono. Structurally, the record is arranged as a collection of vignettes, like a photo gallery of memories, each exploring an aspect of the suffocating grip of his past love. It’s a strong statement, one delivered artfully enough that it never seems to lose its sting. To this day, the record manages to bring a tear to my eye. Its crackling vinyl soundscapes provide the foundation for layers of spacious acoustic guitars and Vernon’s signature falsetto. The fundamental aspects of that sound are ones he would carry with him for the rest of his discography, but no artist stays the same forever.
He followed up this release with an EP, Blood Bank, in 2009. The title track was a scrapped cut from the first album, which, in Vernon’s words, just “didn’t feel right” for it. But, most notably, this release spawned the track Woods, which was heavily sampled and re-interpolated in Kanye West’s Lost In The World — a cut from his acclaimed 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Woods is a minimalist composition that frames Vernon’s voice, modified heavily by vocal processing effects, as the only instrument, layered on itself in a series of chilling harmonies that repeat the same lyric again and again. This degree of experimentation would continue into the project’s future, and is evident on the second full-length album.
Released in 2011, the self-titled record from Bon Iver marks a huge shift. This was the album that saw the transition from Bon Iver existing solely as an alias of Vernon himself, recording and producing all the material personally, to becoming a full band with members. Vernon would still hold the position of “maker” within the group, a self-endowed title that refers to his position as the brains and sole creative voice of the entire project. The new album introduced a wealth of sounds to the band’s arsenal, like strings, drums, and woodwinds — and with these, more dense, multi-layered arrangements. It also presented a thematic change, with many of the songs present displaying more optimistic messaging compared to the first album.
Following the sophomore album, Bon Iver would take a five-year hiatus and Justin would set out to work on a number of side projects and collaborations with other artists. It wasn’t until 2016 that news would surface of a new release from Vernon and company would surface. We were greeted with a rollout of promotional singles for a third album, called 22, A Million. These tracks were very different from what we’d heard before: structurally, first, the two songs were barely three minutes in length each and presented a songwriting style that seemed much more urgent than before. Secondly, there was a major shift in instrumentation and production style, with a heavy use of digitally pitched, chimpunk-like vocals and a general sound design that can only be described as “glitchy”. These elements were off-putting at first, and didn’t seem to fit the songs. But it wasn’t long before they grew on me. Even before hearing the full record, I was onboard.
A track like 22 (OVER S∞∞N) might be packaged a little differently, but it still contains all the elements — and more — that Bon Iver fans have come to expect and love. Vernon’s creative use of sampling in the track’s intro creates a landscape that he paints over with his own harmonizing vocals. Halfway through, we’re greeted with a soulful sax solo (courtesy of Michael Lewis) that layers upon itself in similar fashion to the vocals. The melodies here are exceptional, and they’re paired with some of Vernon’s best lyricism to date. 22, A Million, as a whole, is filled with this degree of next-level songwriting. It’s an album filled with existential questions, a memorial to the past that evokes a feeling sitting somewhere between nostalgic self-reflection and somber regret. There’s never really a spelled-out purpose or setting for the memories explored here, but that’s not the point. The allure of this record is as a human experience. It’s a study of feeling and emotion, painted with lo-fi sounds.
There are elements of the production here reminiscent of The Microphones, Neutral Milk Hotel, or even Peter Gabriel. It’s a dense, sometimes inaccessible style, but it’s to this album’s benefit. Even two years on from 22 A Million’s release, I’m still discovering new sounds and hidden lyrics buried within its mesh of layers. But all this complexity is tied together by one simple element: the potency of Vernon’s vocal melodies. Look no further than 29 #Strafford APTS, a subdued ballad that still manages to house an astonishing degree of sonic detail. But above all, the track is tied together by a gorgeous, breath-taking melodic line. Its crisp acoustic guitars set the tone and atmosphere of a typical Bon Iver track, and above this we’re presented with a layer of raw vocals, introducing us to a description of a place and time we, as the listener, could never actually know, but are still made to yearn for. The song contains one of the album’s few proper choruses — and what a chorus it is. In a tracklist full of formless soundscapes and tracks that meander (in the best possible way), a return to a familiar structure feels comfortable. To hear that same, cutting melody repeat itself just makes it strike harder each time.
In the album’s second half, 8 (circle) and ____45____ are clear standout tracks. The former harkens back to the brass-heavy sound of the self-titled album, serving up a heart-wrenching hook that might be the record’s most beautiful moment. The latter is led by a processed saxophone, run through the signature harmonic synth developed by Bon Iver’s on-staff sound engineer, Chris Messina. It’s a technique that’s used on basically every track on the album, perhaps most notably on 715 - CR∑∑KS, where it’s framed as the only instrument in the mix, and at this point it’s become Vernon’s signature sound.
Across the album’s 35 minute runtime, we’re given an impressive set of ten songs that almost all seem to improve upon the project’s previous releases. It’s a record that tries to, and generally succeeds at, subverting the elements we’ve come to expect from modern music. Structurally, compositionally, and lyrically, we’re treated to something completely unique that manages to see its vision through without ever suffering for its decision to throw out convention. Creating a record like this must have been a monumental task: one Vernon faced down, shrugged, and did anyway. It’s beautiful madness.
