Bon Iver

Bon Iver:

I've been listening to Bon Iver for a while now, a few years, and have only just thought to write about them. Their albums - For Emma Forever Ago, which was released in 2007 on July the 8^th and then in 2011 on June the 21^st, Bon Iver, their self-titled album, was released. Justin Vernon, the creator of Bon Iver, was originally in a band called DeYarmond Edison before moving on to record under the Bon Iver moniker and has had been a part of other side-projects along the way, Volcano Choir, work recorded under his own name (such as - Self Record (2005), Hazletons (2006), Feels Like Home) and so on.

Although Bon Iver haven't recorded much together, what they have recorded works and they work beautifully. Both completely different in their own right, even though they are by the same artist. The albums bring you into the different sound-worlds with ease, and make you want to stay there forever listening and residing as a part of this atmospheric comfort.

Just after DeYarmond Edison disbanded, in a remote hunter's cabin in 2007 is where most of the songs for For Emma Forever Ago were written and recorded. With this in mind, it explains the acoustic intimacy and closeness of the recording, from the remote loneliness of the situations it was created under.

Tracks like Creature Fear give this loneliness over, but also this comfort and warmth - brought in with slow strumming of guitars and humming voices in harmony evolving into softly singing the words with the support of a soft drum beat and the plucking of guitars. It builds and breaks out into the chorus with double-time on the drums and a sold guitar riff, a strong falsetto singing, "So many foreign worlds, so relatively fucked, so ready for us, so ready for us, the creature fear". This unfolds into a spiralling atmosphere with hints of voices and harmonies, leading into whistles of the melody that leads the piece to the end after the instruments cut away. The Wolves (Act I and II) has a similar warm comfort, with the addition of crashing cymbals, staccato plucks and a brass section, that all comes to a halt and ends with his voice singing softly the same way it began.

Bon Iver, their self-titled album, is more electrified, with softly spiralling melodies, sonic textures and sounds that combine comfortably although they may not first sound as though they should, it has as much of this comforting ambience that you get from For Emma Forever Ago. With the familiar use of his falsetto and guitar, but also the incorporation of synths, explosive drums, trumpet, sax and piano and so on.

Wash begins with an unfolding piano ostinato that is surrounded and supported by strings that slowly spiral as it builds with his falsetto and a slow progression of percussion in the background. Beth/Rest is another track on the album that is introduced with chords on the piano, that slowly grows in texture with the addition of electric guitar, the unravelling of Vernon's voice and the backing of a drum beat that builds to a surge of ambience and sound as the keys and guitar take turns in including effervescent phrases of melodies.

Bon Iver's music, these albums, are beautiful pieces of work that, as I have said previously, draw you into their sound-world with ease and comfort and continue to keep you listening over to experience this sound-world endlessly.