Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)

 


As you might have guessed most of these reviews are of artists the reviewer has never listened to before, at least from an album perspective. I find cheap albums in charity shops, come home and take it in. For Bon Iver, I first bought his '22, A Million' first and out it aside and then saw this album which is his debut. Having spent four months in a cabin during winter, the man known as Justin Vernon, put this opus together, and I must say it is wonderful - full of space.

Just his falsetto and a guitar in the most part sometimes mixed up with effects and other vocal layers, it reminds me quite strongly of Ben Howard's 2011, 'Every Kingdom', although this seems more meditative and calmer. It seems that this was a university student favourite and considered something of a break-up record, because of it's sonorous moans and muted excitement. And yet it comes more from not a romantic break-up but from the break-up of the artist's previous band DeYarmond Edison, although this is maybe not a direct result of that. The ruminations are not aimed at just people but maybe just at living a life close to nature. There need not be more of a reading into it.


It is percussive. It is intimate. It has rising and falling choral lines and yet never does it completely stop but drives on to the very end in a largely smooth manner with the main aspect being the haunting falsetto harmonies of Justin. If this is a debut it is very good one. Perhaps the only criticism I can think of is that it might be too little folky and melody driven which means that I don't feel inclined to return to it anytime soon, though that is an article for another time.

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