Bon Iver is back, but not really by choice. SABLE, his first project in over five years (since i,i, in 2019) stemmed "from personal necessity," Justin Vernon told The New Yorker in a rare interview earlier this week.
"It was just time. Some of these songs have been bubbling for five years."
Also marking his first EP since 2009, SABLE,'s triptych of tracks sees the enigmatic folk collective embracing the darkness – à la one of the word "sable"'s many definitions of "near blackness."
"It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer," he noted of the project's incredibly intentional tracklist: "THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS," "S P E Y S I D E" and "AWARDS SEASON," led by a 12-second introductory track "..."
"It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope. Those three things in a row. There’s no room for a prologue or an epilogue at that point. Because that’s it—that’s what everything is."
While SABLE,'s sonic composition signals a return to form for Bon Iver – the antithesis of its experimental i,i, predecessor and indicative of the Bon Iver, Bon Iver and For Emma, Forever Ago days – Vernon explains it's actually not that at all. Stemming from a period of one of Vernon's most trying, anxiety-filled periods of his life, he instead refers to SABLE, as a reset and reintroduction, a sort of "raw second skin."
"I think about time in cylindrical, forward-moving circles. This feels like a new person, new skin. A new everything, more than a return."
Recorded at April Base in Wisconsin, it's clear that the ruminations of SABLE, had been weighing heavy on Vernon. "THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS" finds him confronting the complicated feelings on fame and notoriety, crooning over brooding acoustics: "I don't like the way it's looking / I get caught looking / In the mirror on the regular / What I see there resembles some competitor."
"I did feel like it was important to strip it down to just the bare essentials and get out of the way, to not hide with swaths of choirs. Just get it as close to the human ear as possible."
"S P E Y S I D E," which sounds like it could be lifted from For Emma, was the project's sole pre-release single. An apology track, the three-and-a-half-minute offering is a reliant on the masterful melding of Vernon's vocals with the existential instrumentals. Collaborators include Eli Teplin on synthesizer, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, Mike Lewis on saxophone, organ and piano, Rob Moose on viola and Trever Hagen on trumpet.
The most recently recorded "AWARDS SEASON" closes the circle of SABLE, with one lyric particularly standing out. Vernon reminds us, "I can handle much more than I can handle."
If you take one sentiment away from SABLE, let it be that.
Stream SABLE, – out everywhere now.
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