The backstory is almost too good to be true: Justin Vernon, reeling from breakups with his band and his girlfriend, splits North Carolina to live in a cabin in the woods of his native Wisconsin during the dead of winter. He hunts game, survives on venison, chops his own firewood, and records an album of lush, majestic beauty under the pseudonym Bon Iver. Just a guy with a guitar and a broken heart, getting it all out in a cabin in the middle of the woods.
But For Emma, Forever Ago isn’t the typical sad-sack, singer-songwriter fare. Here Vernon’s multi-tracked falsetto is layered into symphonies of aching despair. Heartbreak this stark shouldn’t be so arresting, and music this simple rarely sounds so complex. Each song seems to contain ghosts that hover just beyond the music, infusing the whole album with a spooky, magnetic edge. “I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there,” says Vernon.
His physical and mental isolation are knit into the grooves of For Emma, and yet at times the sun breaks through those winter clouds to release the inner pop album hiding behind the gloom. But as quickly as those passages appear (like the catchy strum that drives ‘Lump Sum’), they retreat behind Vernon’s icicle falsetto. It’s a voice as impossible to ignore as if you were trapped in that cabin with him, cutting the head off your dinner while the ghosts of winter bang and howl at the door.
Listen: Lump Sum
Tags: Bon Iver, For Emma Forever Ago, Instant Classic, Justin Vernon
11 June 2008 at 7:28 pm |
Listened to the cut… I am kinda up in the air about it. Not sure if I was to cry or run on the treadmill???? lololol… I guess you can tell this one is all too new to me! I am gonna have to put it in the ipod to give it a few more listens to decide.
19 August 2008 at 7:32 am |
[...] story of Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) is oft-told and worth revisiting: guy loses girlfriend, sees his band split up, and cloisters [...]