Bon Iver’s eponymously entitled second full-length is an album with song titles of place names, or near place names. "Holocene," for example, means a place in time, and is our current place in geological time (ubiquitous unfact-checked wiki knowledge). I thought the derivation of Holocene was telling, derived from two Greek words meaning “whole or entire” and “entirely recent.” This is one of my favorite tracks on the album and a great of example of what Justin Vernon and Co have been working on since the “For Emma” and the EP “Blood Bank.” A straightforward acoustic guitar line is accompanied by steel guitar, swelling to the lyric “and once I knew I was not magnificent,” evoking this feeling of discovery, loss (perhaps romantic, or as I hear it, epochal) in tenor and feel.
Tenor and feel are what I take away from the entire “Bon Iver” effort. They lyrics blend in to the music, and are overtracked to the point where my moderately damaged hearing cannot isolate specific lyrics. I feel like a friend who was introduced to The Beatles lyrics by translating them word for word from a dictionary—every time I listen I pick up a few more words, or the words I thought I understood changed.
The album is emotional, starting with Justin Vernon's confident falsetto. It reminds me of Iron and Wine, whose lyrics were punk rock in the quietest way possible. Justin's lyrics are immediately rendered vulnerable by the soft, high delivery. Male rock singers sing loud, and if they sing high they belt it out so we know they are trying hard and emotionally invested.
In addition to their shared fly-over-state origins, Bon Iver is treading on Sufjan Steven’s territory by making music that is both emotionally available, where the song’s speakers are sharing something vulnerable, and doing so in a ways that become more uniquely sophisticated with each edition.
"Michicant" is the song I keep coming back to, a song in waltz-time that rises and falls and avoids any sense of the maudlin. I get the sense that Vernon believes in the lyrics, in their subjective truth, and delivers them tenderly as an accompaniment to the music as much as a literal libretto.
Calgary has as much synth as I’m comfortable tolerating. This dreamy video does little to clear up any theme…all I know is that this is the tear-jerker TV bait that will appear in any number of well scored shows or movies…I'm sure it will be on Chuck or House, which have had pretty good musically sensibilities (Blitzen Trapper, Iron and Wine, Jude, and Radiohead come to mind).
It's not a particularly apt album to drop on the summer solstice, but I will be listening to it quite a bit while I drive around in the hot nights, through forests, with the window open. It’s not Wisconsin, but with this album everywhere can aspire to be the upper Midwest.
PS –I was more than a little smitten when I read the Justin Vernon feature in NYT. Good read to accompany a great album.
