iPod Update: Bon Iver

The website you are on is not the first online version of the AUMnibus. The AUMnibus was published exclusively online for a number of years. Thanks to the Internet Archive, we can recover some of those articles. This was one of the very first articles published on the site around 2007 or 2008.

Bon Iver is a household name when it comes to current music, but when this article was published he was merely an independent artist trying to make a living.

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iPod Update: Bon Iver
Bon Iver- “For Emma, Forever Ago”
By Katy Williams

Time spent isolated from the world can do one of two things: drive a person completely insane or inspire that person to create something so beautiful that any outside factor would do nothing more than spoil its authenticity.

Bon Iver is a band whose album “For Emma, Forever Ago” did just that. Justin Vernon, the lead singer of Bon Iver, escaped his hectic world full of deadlines and pressure to a pristine and quiet cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin on the brink of winter to collect his thoughts. He had no intention of writing an album, but when he emerged from his seclusion, a quiet masterpiece was born.

The name “Bon Iver” comes from the French words “Bon Hiver,” meaning “good winter.” This bittersweet winter helped the singer with his journey of self realization and closure in his last relationship that ended with his heart completely shattered and calloused to the world. Each track has a powerful meaning, and hauntingly powerful vocals. Bon Iver takes raw emotions that we all feel from time to time and turns them into words to sing along with and music to nod your head.

The first track entitled “Flume” does more than just set the tone for the entire album; it slaps you in the face with nostalgic notes and chords that – in some way, shape or form – take you back to some point in your life when you felt that low. It gives you something to soothe your pain. “Skinny Love” is an exceptional track on the album as well. The vocals are strained and stretched almost to the point of cracking, just like his heart. Every instrument sounds worn out and raspy for the same reason.

The journey in the artist’s life becomes apparent in the song “Re:Stacks.” He emphasizes that the music he is writing is not his passage of becoming a new person, but a weight being lifted from his soul as he leaves the cabin returning to his old life.

“This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization; it’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away. Your love will be, safe with me.”

This is definitely an album that you would enjoy in the pensive stillness of the night, the silent woods, or just the calm seclusion of your headphones.