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DeYarmond Edison was a roots-rock band hailing from Wisconsin. When they
settled in North Carolina,
Justin Vernon decided to return to Wisconsin and launch his solo project,
Bon Iver. The stark, skeletal
For Emma Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar, 2008) presented
a melancholic singer-songwriter in the vein of
Iron And Wine.
Vernon is fluent in a versatile falsetto register,
best demonstrated in the singalong Flume.
But his real asset is the way a song is constructed and unwound.
The counterpoint to the vocals in Lump Sum are a monk-like choir and
a pseudo-Brazilian pattern that the guitar repeats over and over again.
The effect in the pseudo-blues shout of Skinny Love is that the strumming
is even plainer, but in reality it's a duet of
guitar and banjo that maintains the apparent equilibrium.
The dreamy art of The Wolves (Act I and II) is mostly vocal polyphony,
merging gospel, doo-wop and West-Coast folk-rock.
The pure ethereal atmosphere of Blindsided relies as much on
double falsetto dialogue as on colorful if subdued guitar knitting.
After a hummed overture, Creature Fear toys with mood shifts, alternating whispered to shouted parts,
For Emma is, instead, wildly different in nature: a
lively and romantic tune that actually boasts an arrangement of horns and twangy
guitar (and a long instrumental break).
The closer is also the longest piece, Re: Stacks, a calm dreamy
meditation with none of the subtlety of the previous songs, but, on the other
hand, a lot of tenderness.
The rest of DeYarmond Edison
remained in North Carolina and started Megafaun that
released Bury the Square (Table of the Elements, 2008) in a free-folk vein, followed by Gather Form & Fly (2009), a more
energetic and vital collection (to the point of being at times cacophonous)
that contains the charming Solid Ground, The Fade and Kaufman's Ballad,
as well as the convoluted Impressions of the Past and
The Process.
Bon Iver's EP Blood Bank (Jagjaguwar, 2009) contains 4 tracks of material recorded between 2006 and 2008, notably
the hypnotic Babys (based on loud piano strumming),
the psychedelic chant Woods (worthy of David Crosby's If I Could
Only Remember my Name), and the poignant if
plain single Blood Bank, that basically follows in the footsteps of
the album's last song, Re: Stacks.
Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and
Wisconsin's instrumental combo
Collections of Colonies of Bees
formed Volcano Choir and released the brainy and gloriously deranged
Unmap (Jagjaguwar, 2009).
This time Bon Iver sang in an ecstatic, stoned, dreamy register that evoked
David Crosby's
If I Could Only Remember My Name. The band accompanied
him with discrete acoustic touches.
Some songs are little more than
abstract mood-sculpting for acoustic guitar and ghostly voices
(Husks And Shells)
That psychedelic element meets post-rock and minimalist repetition in the
seven-minute Seeplymouth, reminiscent of
Laurie Anderson before it turns into
a tribal orgy.
The other seven-minute piece, Still, is an agonizing remix of Woods.
Dote is little more than an "om" released on top of a mountain in
a distant land.
There is more than just transfixed meditation for old hippies.
Mbira In The Morass childishly deconstructs the format of the jazz
ballad for cocktail lounges.
Being a regular song, Island IS looks like an oddity here.
The whole album feels like a ghostly experience, a brief detour into
another dimension.
Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar, 2011) was almost the exact opposite of the debut
album: drenched in lush electroacoustic orchestration (including
a string section arranged by Rob Moose and saxophonist Colin Stetson).
Perth (falsetto soul music with martial drumming and chaotic bombast)
signaled a complete change of direction. For better and for worse, Bon Iver
indulged in Babelic confusion, best represented by
Minnesota WI in which an
ambient guitar melody reminiscent of Western movie soundtracks,
funk-soul rhythm, lounge horns and bluegrass strumming coexist and alternate
without any rational, narrative justification.
It's like Van Morrison's Moon Dance but without the killer melodies.
He often employs a strategy of progressive refinement: the
country-rock tune Towers begins as a nebula of sound but with every
sentence he adds an instrument, a riff, a vocal counterpoint, a sound effect.
Other songs simply don't go anywhere and consist in floating around the
vocals, as is the case for the orchestral dream Wash.
When Bon Iver sticks to a center of mass, like in the single Calgary,
he sounds like a hard-rock version of Sting.
Thanks to Doogie Howser's solemn piano notes, Beth/Rest evokes
Chicago's grand ballads, except that
Bon Iver lacks the grand hook to go with it and therefore opts for a
pointless instrumental jam.
The brief and psychedelic Hinnom TX
and the surreal glitchy instrumental Lisbon OH
end up sounding more intriguing
than the ambitious architectures of the louder songs.
The introverted atmosphere of the debut album is partially reenacted in the
fragile jazzy litany of Holocene
and in the sleepy slocore cry of Michicant.
His falsetto is an acquired taste. It definitely lends an sense of vulnerability
to the songs, but it also keeps them from sounding more adult.
This over-produced album ends up showing the limitations of Bon Iver's skills
as a composer and a songwriter.
What is amazing is that songs that are arranged and structured in such wildly
different manners end up sounding so similar and repetitive.
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