Ahh Bon Iver. Even saying those two words sends people into a mesmeric daze - a blissful high that glazes your eyes over and leaves you reminiscing about crying into a pillow with ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ blaring out, empty packets of Hula Hoops scattered around the room and the lights dimmed to pitch darkness.
Oh - just us then?
Yet that’s the exact power and importance of a Bon Iver record. It’s been 5 years since the release of their self-titled second record, which brought into colour the flourishes and future of a project that initially formed as a way to overcome the heartache and sheer loneliness hiding in the abyss after love has been lost. It’s been a method of communication for Justin Vernon to expel his darkest fears, the crippling anxieties and bittersweet highs that come through his own mind, and through that has found an audience that’s been longing for such honesty and bravery. What he’s created, is two sensational albums, varied and different but ultimately held together by a core understanding of what Bon Iver is, and what it means to so many people.
How to then follow that? A question which for a long time was answered with “Don’t”. Why try to follow up something so natural, force yourself into embarking on a new journey when there isn’t one laid out. Why try to write a new chapter to a book that’s got no more stories to tell. Why try and distill human emotion into 10 tracks when you’ve already done it so well?
It’s that last question which as preyed heavy on the mind of Justin Vernon, one that has seen him break down on stranded beaches. When it’s your mind and experiences that so many draw towards, that pressure to not only deliver but survive can become unbearable. From that, comes ’22, A Million’ - that next chapter the world has been waiting for.
At just over 35 minutes long, it’s a succinct record of compressed and distorted ventures into folk, atmospheric electronica and blues - all coated with a digitalised sense of the modern world but always packed with emotion and soul, the emotion and soul that’s made Bon Iver what it is today. More than just a person, a band - but it’s own entity. Gurgling to stay above water, it captures humanity in 2016 and pulls you in to see it more clearly - examining love, fear and our own existence through the lens of pain and brutal self-evaluation.
