Out Of The Wild - Bon Iver

Garnering unanimous media accolades, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago' is the debut release from Bon Iver, the nom de plume of Justin Vernon, an album that enjoys an extraordinary genesis and story of actualistion. Having spent three months retreat in the snowy hinterland of Northwestern Wisconsin, settling into his Dad’s hunting cabin amidst the sub-zero temperatures, listening out for the bears and stoking of the fire, the creative urge that led to the album which would have been inconceivable amidst the daily traffic of pedestrian consciousness.

Dressed up like a squirrel hunting woodsman from the sartorial school of Damon Gough, replete with scruffy wool beanie and outdoorsman shirt, Gigwise caught up with Justin Vernon who with his warm and jolly demeanour seems as far from the self-mythologising as you could wish, and goes on to explain his aesthtics and artistic vision. Publicity went into overdrive on the review by a music site which culminated in a record deal with Jagjaguwar in the States and 4AD in the U.K. Vernon explains how this all came about.

Justin Vernon - “We pressed 500 copies, had it hand screen-printed and we just sold it at shows and our website. We had 100 copies by the time the Pitchfork review came about, and we were really ill prepared for that. We had that review happen, and we had our cd's sell in the next day. We’d been talking to labels before Pitchfork and the New York Times review, and it made it semi-awkward to talk to some of the labels after that had happened. They were saying - We were literally going to call you the day before the review came out. I know that there's the whole game or whatever, but I went with Jagjaguwar ‘cos they talked to me from way in the beginning. They're from the mid-west
and we have similar vibes”.

‘For Emma’ is something of a multitracked playground of shimmering acoustic textures and layers of choral vocals which would be highly difficult to produce in a live setting, but with the use of a three-piece band, that’s what Bon Iver are set about doing on their current first tour of the U.K. As Vernon explains - “It's definitely more lively, It's a different story live than it is on a record. It's more extroverted. We get a lot of the eerie qualities. I like writing songs, but my aesthetic is musical and arty or whatever, and we've been working to sound as ambient as we can and getting great textures. Some of the choral stuff we've been trying to extract, with delays, reverbs, nothing too complicated, it's really about the courage to turn it up and really make it eerie and fill the room with space. Pedals can extend a lot of music, but I find I can get really distracted by pedals. I use them for sure, but if I did more than what we're doing now I think I’d stop performing and start pedalling or something“.

'For Emma' captures the simplicity and the minimalism of being holed up in a shack in winter with a stripped, stark, and wintry aesthetic, a solitary reality that Vernon takes as a cue for being inspired musically and sonically. Along with a storybook feel, who could possibly have written those songs with the everyday preoccupations of the city-bound pedestrian mind. Vernon’s subconscious was clearly in on the act.

Vernon - “I wouldn't have been able to think what I was thinking about. The biggest truth is that if I hadn't been alone, and separated from people, I wouldn't have been able to dive in that deep into that kind of subject material. It was a long 3 months. Very strange actually“.
 
Which brings us to the nitty gritty - just who is Emma, and is the arcane nature of the lyric play hiding a disconsolation with a relationship split? Vernon - “Well it isn't. Wholly. That's part of the story. The record does have songs that are detached from that. The record does have a whole quality, it got put together that way. The story’s more about me, and it has to do with old relationships and old love and how those old loves kind of come back to haunt you as you try to make yourself new again“.
 
Taking the opening track 'Flume' as a lyrical reference with Vernon singing “I am my mother’s only son…“, and asked if there’s a continuity throughout the tracks, Vernon explains - “Yeah, it is kind of linear that way. Selfishly speaking - it is a record about my story and these loves and other things. It could easily be confused with a dedication to this one person or one relationship, and in a way it boils down to that, this old, ancient relationship. And it's been years since that. And a lot of the new relationships are ambushed by me or whatever and it boils down to this idea of lost love and what comes of that“.
 
Whereas on 'Skinny Love' the ambiguity is laid bare, there’s a lot more emotion and more aching, with quite possibly a lot of anger and confusion. Arguably one of the finest moments on ‘For Emma’, Vernon explains the songs genesis - “Actually what that song is saying - the character in the song is really an ex-girlfriend of mine, not a very recent one, and that's her speaking those words to me. I didn't realise that when I was writing those words, but then I realised those words were coming out of my mouth and I realised what kind of message that was sending. Wow, I’m an asshole, or I really didn't do this correctly. It was pretty heavy to step into her shoes for a little bit and see what I was doing. And the song 'For Emma' is really similar - it's a conversation between me and the same girl. It's her that says - I’ve seen what you're talking about, I know what you're talking about. Just spare me. I’ve seen every road sign heads 'For Emma'. and it's like Emma is this idea or place and she kind of helped me see that. Both those songs are sung from that perspective”.