From ‘Hazelton’ to ‘Holocene’: Pre-Bon Iver Justin Vernon Song Gets First Digital Release
new single is teaser for upcoming box set
V1 Staff |
In geology, the word “Holocene” refers to the current geological age, which means that anything before the Holocene is prehistoric. And so it is with the latest digital single released by indie record label Jagjaguwar: the nearly 20-year-old Justin Vernon solo track “hazleton.” The single, which was digitally released for the first time June 22, is part of the prehistory of Vernon’s now-iconic indie band, Bon Iver, having evolved into the better-known Bon Iver song “Holocene.”
The original song was released back in 2006 on the album hazeltons, which was at first only available on 100 handmade, hand-numbered CD-Rs. That was a year before Bon Iver’s breakthrough, For Emma, Forever Ago, and five years before the song “hazeltons” was rewritten into the Bon Iver single “Holocene” (check out the lyric video below, and you can hear the similarities if you’re familiar with the latter song).
The new/old single is being unveiled as part of the roll-out of Epoch, a five-LP, four-CD collection of work by Vernon and his early career collaborators in the short-lived Eau Claire band DeYarmond Edison. Dropping Aug. 18, the “definitive boxed set” promises to give music fans a chance to explore the early 2000s Eau Claire scene that spawned Bon Iver, Megafaun, The Shouting Matches, and numerous other notable bands.
Here’s the full scoop from a media release from Jagjaguwar:
Hear The Justin Vernon Song That Became Bon Iver’s “Holocene” In Latest Single From DeYarmond Edison’s Definitive Box Set
On August 18th, Jagjaguwar will release Epoch, the 5-LP, 4-CD and 114-page story of DeYarmond Edison: a short-lived band with an outsized and indispensable impact, whose sudden implosion ended up birthing Bon Iver, Megafaun and so many more. Through the 83 recordings unearthed across the definitive box set, the formative evolution of members Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Justin Vernon and Joe Westerlund is documented in unabashed and unabridged detail – from the big dreams, superhuman connection and multiple albums they made together as childhood friends in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley, to the life-changing year of collective experimentation in Raleigh, NC, to the individual aspirations that led to revelatory and dismal moments of tension. Today, for Epoch's second preview, another transformative piece of the past is revisited with two new singles, officially available on digital platforms for the first time.
Listen to Justin Vernon's "hazelton" b/w "liner," and Watch the Lyric Video: HERE
As the oldest song that would become part of Bon Iver's wider repertoire, "hazelton" eventually matured into the indelible "Holocene," but Justin Vernon first recorded it between July 2005-May 2006 for what would be his third solo album. Originally released on a batch of 100 handmade, hand-numbered CD-Rs, hazeltons now makes up one of Epoch's five LPs. "This is the sound of sorting through an overabundance of new info, mostly for yourself. And, even in the rather fraught process, finding out just where it is you've been headed your whole life," writes Grayson Haver Currin, the box set's executive producer and biographer. Above a cascading melody and novel picking pattern, Vernon uses his newly excavated falsetto to offer elliptical lyrics about hurt and hurting and salvation and self-definition. "hazelton" feels like a lightning strike of inspiration, but at the time it was the most significant point of departure in the dissolution of DeYarmond Edison. It was an extracurricular insult when Vernon, Westerlund and the Cook brothers were all still evolving as a four-piece unit. Just more than a month after Vernon dropped off copies of hazeltons at the record store where Brad Cook worked in their adopted hometown of Raleigh, NC, DeYarmond Edison played its final show. Less than a year later, Bon Iver and Megafaun would each issue their respective debuts.
In addition to "hazelton" and "liner," the rest of hazeltons features other eccentricities, ideas and remarkable steps forward that Justin Vernon would further explore on Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago and beyond. "hannah, my ophelia," a collaboration with members of Collections of Colonies of Bees, would soon yield the band Volcano Choir. Also available on Epoch's physical edition is an exclusive live version of "hazelton" that Vernon recorded with Aaron and Bryce Dessner in Paris.
Pre-Order Epoch and Watch the Box Set's Trailer: HERE
Accompanied by dozens of previously unpublished photos and 60,000 words worth of in-depth interviews and universal tales of small-town transcendence, each of Epoch's LPs is encapsulated by a unique symbol and color palette representing the dynamics of DeYarmond Edison at that given time and place. "hazelton" and "liner" follow the recent release of DeYarmond Edison's "As Long As I Can Go" b/w Justin Vernon & Phil Cook's "Feel The Light," the lead single from Epoch's first LP, All of Us Free. Spanning November 1998-July 2005, All of Us Free brings DeYarmond Edison back to its earliest iteration, as a group of Eau Claire high schoolers who called themselves Mount Vernon. They soon sputtered to life as the DeYarmond Edison Quartet with a debut album they self-recorded in the nude at a local Presbyterian church.
Epoch also includes DeYarmond Edison's second studio album, Silent Signs, remastered and pressed to vinyl for the first time, plus Epoch, etc., which showcases the explosion of brilliance that resulted from a year spent reinventing themselves after a hope-filled move from Eau Claire to Raleigh. That Was Then, the four-CD component of Epoch, excavates live recordings from DeYarmond Edison's Bickett Gallery residency in North Carolina, and a triumphant 2006 show at Wisconsin's Mabel Tainter theater, while Where We Belong combines tapes from the very first Megafaun rehearsal, different DeYarmond Edison reunions, and other buried treasures that came during the decade after the band's dissolution.
