Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon will always be an enigma. Since 2007’s ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ stumbled from a Wisconsin hunting cabin into the hearts and homes of people seeking emotionally intelligent indie-folk, he has been remodelling their music to serve whatever purpose he sees fit. On their first new release since 2019’s Marmite, ‘i,i’, the ‘SABLE’ EP serves as a stripped-back system reboot.
Again swapping the teeming world for seclusion in the woods, ‘SABLE’ trace’s Vernon’s pandemic-induced, rum-soaked self-reflection. While its title foreshadows the near-blackness of its sombre lyrics, the sparse arrangements of these three tracks paint a picture of sunlight slicing through fog.
It’s the most straightforward Bon Iver have sounded in over a decade, yet the brightest they’ve shone, too.
Opener THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS’ discordant guitar is the sound of fresh air whipping you in the face on a crisp October morning.
Its sparingly-used pedal-steel and heaven-sent harmonies symbolise Vernon’s scrambled sense-of-self, as he knowingly declares: “I am afraid of changing, and when it comes a time to check and rearrange shit, there are things behind things behind things, and there are rings within rings within rings.”
Single S P E Y S I D E’s softly-spoken strumming and harmonious, humming rain serves as a ghostly stage for Vernon’s kitchen table confessionals, as he desperately declares: “But maybe you can still make a man from me, here on Speyside quay, with what’s left of me, as you live and breathe, I really know now what had a hold on me.”
AWARDS SEASON’s a capella core blossoms into a string-accompanied, saxophone-laden break, its built-in optimism betraying the insularity present elsewhere on ‘Sable’. The vulnerability that runs throughout these songs, like veins pumping blood, has sparked new life in Bon Iver. Vernon has never sounded better.
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