At a time when mystique can be in short supply in pop, leave it to Justin Vernon to revert to the age-old tradition of being a little more mysterious. Start with Sable, the new record by his band Bon Iver, their first new release in five years. Other than Beyoncé’s gap from Lemonade to Renaissance, how many major acts take that long between records?
Then, notice that Sable is an EP consisting of only three tunes. We’ve lately seen a trend toward relatively compact 10-or-so-song albums (Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Maggie Rogers, Ice Spice) after years of overstuffed and overlong records. But in this case, we’ve waited all this time and are rewarded with barely 15 minutes of music? Again, go figure, but you’ve got to admire the eccentricity of it all.
Bon Iver’s music has always been lyrically furtive and musically pliable, which is still the case on its three tracks, which his camp is dubbing “an externalized projection of his turmoil … an unburdening from one of the most trying eras in Vernon’s life. There was a time not long ago where Vernon intentionally hid his face. Here, the blinds are open.” That was certainly true of “Speyside,” the initial video from Sable, released about a month ago. In it, a pained-looking Vernon is seen, eyes often closed, resting on a bed as a breeze blows curtains around close to his face. But at least you could see his face.
In the other two Sable videos, both released today, Vernon is back to his shadowy, clandestine self. In “Things Behind Things Behind Things,” he’s mostly seen sitting and plucking his guitar in what looks like a darkened barn. On record, “Awards Season” (directed, like the previous two clips, by Erinn Springer) finds him comforting himself and his new partner by cranking some Rickie Lee Jones records and admitting, “You can be remade/You can live again/ What was pain now’s gained/A new path gets laid.” In the video, though, he’s again Bon Enigma. We’re exposed to gossamer clouds, full moons and a couple making out more than we see Vernon, who’s primarily glimpsed back in that murky room or on what looks like a TV screen.
In August, Vernon resurfaced to play at a Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign event in his home state of Wisconsin, where he played the Civil War-era “Rally ‘Round the Flag” and a few of his own songs. As he told Rolling Stone, “You’re playing these Bon Iver songs that aren’t exactly ‘kick your feet up, dance and get excited!’ But when we played ‘Rally ’Round the Flag,’ t felt like we’d settled in, and that was the purpose of the day — to get that music out in the air for those people at that moment.”
Vernon then spent some time with Harris and Walz in a friend’s food store. “When Biden dropped out, it was feeling very scary,” he said. “Then there was relief. And then the momentum of that relief has turned into actual excitement and a feeling we haven’t had for a long time in this country. I told Vice President Harris and Coach Walz and their staff, ‘We will be anywhere.’”
