Soundboard

Hey, remember Bon Iver?

Mike Paulus, photos by Hanna Agar |

 
"OK, dudes. OK. I'll do another record."

If you’re any kind of fan of Bon Iver, I’m sure you heard the big news yesterday – there’s to be a new album in June. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Justin Vernon mentions the June timeframe and vaguely describes a handful of the album's ten tracks. He also admits that “Somewhere along the line, I forgot how to write songs.” Obviously, you can’t become an internationally recognized recording artist and then simply crank out another For Emma, Forever Ago, an album defined by desperate isolation – in both sound and backstory. At least, I doubt you can do it very easily.

So Vernon had to approach things differently, “trying to build sounds rather than songs” says Rolling Stone writer Evan Serpick. Thus, he got help from a bunch of awesome studio musicians and apparently figured out how to write songs again. Read the brief article for more details, including adjectives like chaotic, dense, and jarring.

For those unfamiliar with Bon Iver/local man Justin Vernon, know that his breakthrough album For Emma, Forever Ago roundhouse kicked its way onto the national scene way back in 2007*, and his 4-track Blood Bank EP came out back in January 2009, so Bon Iver-niks are clamoring for some new stuff – quietly, desperately clamoring. In isolation. In falsetto. Forever.

*This should go without saying, but if you happen to own one of the locally released pre-Jagjaguwar For Emma discs, um ... hold on to it.