Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To be meaningful, music has to relate to what we already know in some way. The magic of Bon Iver’s Bon Iver, Bon Iver is the way it joins innovative songwriting with deeper meaning. The tracks ground themselves in a potent simplicity out of which their unique forms grow.

One thing that makes this possible is the variety and depth of sound the album produces. Paying attention to Vernon’s voice alone conveys the multidimensionality of the space the record carves out. It ranges in pitch from his signature soul-full falsetto down to a rumbling baritone that we haven’t heard from Vernon since his days in DeYarmond Edison. There is also great range – front to back and left to right in the mix. The spectral choir in the beginning of “Perth,” is so distant and peripheral that subconsciously the head cocks and the body gently leans while straining to make out the faint vibrations.

The depth and variety present in the voice is enhanced by the orchestral variety of sounds. Included in these are strings, woodwinds, synth-drones, guitar – playing both thick chords and verbed-out ambiance – electronic flourishes, and the alternate ring clack and thump of percussion that’s sometimes played in classic set style, but more often in a manner that focuses on eliciting the timberal possibilities of a single drum, cymbal or other unit of auxiliary percussion (see the closing instrumental section on album opener “Perth.”)

Throughout the album the gradual addition and subtraction of color and texture is used to draw the music in new and unexpected directions. The clear, rapid plucking of the acoustic guitar emerges from the back of “Minnesota, WI,” like the rapid tap of a crisp rain. At 1:45 the rest of the ensemble drops out, and the plucking motif takes a few measures to establish itself before the ensemble bursts in around it. The song is thrust in a new direction but still retains a feeling of unity. Likewise, the fuzzy lead guitar that punctuates the background in “Calgary,” moves into the foreground as everything but the drums drop out. It asserts its heavy, agitated nature in the form of a new chord progression. The rest of the ensemble rejoins, now influenced by the character of the guitar, and a new section blooms.

But what really drives this all home is the way the words blend with the musical ideas. In writing the lyrics, Vernon says, “I attempted to build odd landscapes that you could exist in that had weird feelings but also cool-sounding words.” The songs are like snippets of subconscious imagery that don’t connect to one another in a grammatical sense, but are all expressions of a single, illusive feeling. This fluid style of lyric writing allows the words to embed themselves in the music, instead of riding on top of them. “Still alive who you love,” Vernon sings on the opening track, and the vocal line imitates the lead guitar line that had been straining to overcome the gentle stagnancy of the first verse. This vocal arrival is the sound of triumph, a revelation of the strength we can find within ourselves during a dark hour.

With the album’s mixture of meaning and novelty, listening to Bon Iver, Bon Iver, one can hear the past flowing into the future.  Approached with the right mind set, it is a life affirming experience.

 

- Caleb Price (June 20, 2011)