BON IVER レコード& CD

Review: After 2015, Bon Iver began to fuse ambient glitch with folk, a style which now reaches a head on his latest LP. It expands on 2024's taster EP 'SABLE' in the form of an 11-track sonic parable: waxing introspective on difficult themes such as memory and identity, 'THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS' and 'S P E Y S I D E' indulge typographic play and fragmental lyrics, the latter especially paradigm-shifting in lyrical perspective. 'Awards Season', also, deals in the problematics of recognition, peeking behind and thus part-dissolving the veil of success in public life. With signature passion yet quarrelsomeness, Justin Vernon has crafted yet another glistening, glitching folk odyssey for us to enjoy.

Review: "The album that put Bon Iver on the map is back, this time on limited white vinyl stretched across two LPs. This originally minimal, heartbreaking 9-tracker - that dealt with the shock of Vernon's best friend Heath Ledger's death, among other events - is now rounded off with 5 alternate recordings, 3 of which are stripped-down live takes on the album tracks 'Wash', 'Beth/Rest' and 'Hinnom, TX'. The remaining two come from elsewhere; 'I Can't Make You Love Me' and 'Babys', like the others, were recorded at AIR Studios by Justin Vernon and his bandmate Sean Carey, on grand pianos and vocals only.

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Review: Justin Vernon's voice has always been the people's main attraction to Bon Iver, and the fact his pseudonym even exists is certainly no coincidence. As fragile and heartbroken as it is forthright and experienced, when you're wearing a shredded heart on sleeve and confessing to all your deepest insecurities using a pen name can help immensely. Album number four perhaps proves this more than any of its predecessors. While the three previous chapters have all made his thoughts, feelings, insecurities and fears clear, this one takes honesty to new heights. Combining the frail electronics that have gradually slipped their way into his back catalogue with the acoustics of his earliest, rocket-to-fame efforts, it's a culmination of all that's been in the truest sense. Perhaps even more intimate than the breathtakingly personal "For Emma, Forever Ago", "i,i" is a striking work to say the least.

Review: The evolution of Justin Vernon from the broken-hearted, falsetto-voiced troubadour who emerged from his cabin to deliver his debut eight years ago to the here and now may seem downright implausible, yet the facts of the matter are this - '22, A Million' is proof positive that he is one of the most multi-faceted and enigmatic and inscrutable artists we have at our disposal, still capable of delivering heart-rending beauty in song form yet also of marrying it to wilful abstraction in a way that not only offers emotional resonance yet reflects and refracts its surrounding era to offer succour and salvation. Sing it from the rooftops, this is little short of a complicated modern masterpiece.