4/5
Four Years, Forever Ago.
'...'. Sometimes, we don't talk about music the way we do movies. Right now, Winter is coming, and we're falling into the Oscar season of movies of high-art, looking for their own golden statue and shot of immortality. The Academy Awards of music, The Grammys, are gaining the same reverence these days. But yet we don't talk about the fall schedule of your stereo and smartphone's playlist as being Grammy ready. 'AWARDS SEASON' off Bon Iver's new 'SABLE' release might just change all that. "Oh, how everything can change/In such a small time frame/You can be remade/You can live again/What was pain now's gain/A new path gets laid/And you know what is great/Nothing stays the same", Wisconsin's own, Justin Vernon sings. Giving rhyme to the reason, that this a prestige piece ready for the season of awards. Their best EP since they were 'Lost In The Woods' (which led to the Kanye sample and collaborations) with a 'Blood Bank', gives even more evidence that the Grammy's should have a category for best extended plays too.
'For Emma, Forever Ago' changed the mainstream game. The self-titled follow-up hit indie-rock act Bon Iver into the stratosphere. '22 A Million' went even further. But it's been a long time since the 'Skinny Love' of 2019's influential 'I, I', one of the last great albums before COVID. A lot can happen in four, long years. A planet's pandemic. Loneliness. Disappointment. One of the best acts in the world were about to embark on a tour of it, and then we all know what happened, as everything shut down. We needed the praise of their 'Heavenly Father' solo singer, like the isolated but inspired Paris La Blogothèque live session takes. You can hear it on the EP's single 'S P E Y S I D E' between the breaks. "I can't rest on no dynasty/Yeah, what is wrong with me?/Man, I'm so sorry
I got the best of me/I really damn been on such a violent spree/But maybe you can still make a man from me." Justin just sings, with no justification. Just brutal honesty in a raw reflection as unkempt as the long, but thinning (here, here) hair in Johnny Cash black and white for another classic American recording. Looking like Rick Rubin, or his own most prolific producer of music.
Instrumental, from the stirring opening to the black/pink square artwork, this is as straight forward and as beautiful as songwriting comes. After all, it's all about the heart of matters and the 'THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS' of love and life itself. "I can't go through the motions/I can't go through the motions/How'm I supposed to do this now?/Say we went out strolling/Say we went out strolling/Say I went and told them how/I am afraid of changing/And when it comes a time to check and rearrange s###/There are things behind things behind things/And there are rings within rings within rings." Poetic with the prose, this may be the victory lap for one of the best records of the year. Even though winning it for an EP in the championship that is the Grammys may be like winning the NBA's In-Season Tournament. Many expected 'SABLE' to be Bon Iver's fifth LP, but maybe this is just the perfect precursor to an album to come, like fellow unearthed indie God Hozier, who gave us even more from the ground up. Either way, this "near-blackness", from the northern exposure of an April Base in Fall Creek, will keep us warm this good winter. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS'. 'S P E Y S I D E', 'AWARDS SEASON'.
Spin This: Bon Iver 'Blood Bank' EP
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