Spectreview: Bon Iver – i,i

-LIGHT GREEN-

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“How often you gonna see now
Truly what you cease to be
Will you adjust your scenery?”

Justin Vernon has remained a folk artist at heart, but his holistic approach to the genre has alienated many who still know him as the guy who did the thing in the woods on 2008’s For Emma, Forever Ago. That melancholic, devastatingly understated record will follow him till the day he hangs up the Bon Iver project for good, as every record he’s done afterward, from the baroque pop-folk of his self-titled record to the glitchy experimentation of 22, A Million, has further turned off those that just want to see Vernon with his guitar singing his guts out on Jools Holland. i,i, Vernon’s fourth LP under the Bon Iver moniker, will not likely assuage these people; it’s perhaps the least change we’ve seen from his music yet, a recommitment to a style that we can safely call his new signature. Like 22, A Million, it’s a gnarled combination of soulful singing and piecemeal electronic collaging that sounds suspiciously like an AI having been fed popular music from the last 20 years. It’s an approach that’s simultaneously wondrous and frustrating in the way it keeps its cerebral side and its melodramatic side crossed and irreconcilable, and those who need their music one way or the other will likely be as put off by this record as his last one. You could certainly cry “pretentious” if desired, and for his part Vernon hasn’t given much reason to believe otherwise, but sit with this record for a moment and its purposeful meticulousness will soon become apparent.

Despite autumn’s role as an overarching motif, sonically it’s a notably warmer record than 22, A Million, perhaps thanks to less vocal manipulation, or to a renewed utilization of live instrumentation like strings and horns. Or, in line with a record about faith, it’s perhaps because gospel seems to take a more prominent role than ever, even if it’s not so much a refocusing as a addition to an already stuffed mix of folk, adult contemporary and electronic. The funny thing is how this gospel styling is used not as a signifier of Christian worship (unless it’s being used ironically) but as more of a secular expression of human collectivity. Bon Iver may have started solely as Vernon, but it’s long been a collaborative project under an auteurist vision, and that collaborative spirit fits well within this album’s examinations of self-disconnection and community. Moses Sumney’s falsetto on the piano-led “U (Man Like)” blends well with Vernon’s, even if the song itself is one of the album’s lower points, a pointed call to political action that reads more maudlin than moving. Meanwhile, James Blake’s presence on opening song “iMi” is subtle but observable, as the tracks lurches between spacious balladry and tidal waves of messy affirmations. Yet it’s the sparsest tracks on the album that arguably carry the most power: The aforementioned “Jelmore” is a doleful landscape of broken synth pads and saxophone that captures the hopelessness surrounding poverty and rising global temperatures, while “Marion” posits harmonizing acoustic guitars in a simple, makeshift hymn.

Vernon has admitted in the past that his lyrics are based more in pleasant sound pairings than in comprehensive potential, which is potentially what makes his music so resonant to some and so insufferable to others. Ironically, appreciating Bon Iver to the fullest requires an understanding of what Vernon is saying, as on a very basic level his goal has always been telling opaque, eternally interpretable songs about tenuous relationships, with the main subjects of these songs having slowly shifted from the romantic to the spiritual to the interpersonal to, in this case, the intrapersonal. i,i’s primary concern is the crossroads between believing in yourself and believing in a higher power, how the struggle to understand and love yourself can be complicated by the intrusive laws of organized religion. It’s a prescient topic in today’s state of affairs, and this argument is framed within the hypocrisy of modern Christianity (“U (Man Like)”), the corruption of the current administration (“Sh’diah”; “Holyfields,”) and the rising threat of a climate apocalypse (“Jelmore”). This all makes i,i way more of a political record than the project is known for, and yet it’s not the main focus: as if powered by some recent self-discovery, when Vernon speaks about “Faith” he likely means having faith in humanity, and the ability to trust your own judgment instead of the words of others. Perhaps framing this sentiment in such a way provides an optimistic, idealized solution to the divisive times we live in now, even if the argument that Vernon is potentially presenting isn’t suited well by his flowery lyrical style. Keeping his words on the edge of inscrutability partially robs such sentiments of their power, and as a result the record is rather inconsistent in its profundity, lending the closing argument in “RABi” a strange presumptuousness. Nevertheless, there’s tons to appreciate on a base lyrical level, from homonymic turns of phrase to typically vivid imagery to inspired metaphors (his use of the word “mastodons” to describe the generations facing climate change, for example). This is not a tossed-off project in the slightest, and there are moments of intense clarity, like the seething breakdown on “Sh’diah” and the cutting chorus of “Hey, Ma” that reaffirm Vernon’s gift for incisive, heartfelt songwriting. It needs a few listens to settle in, but i,i is a meticulously ornate listen that’s as rewarding as anything Bon Iver’s done since.

Recommended for the burning leaves.