Monday Late Night Music – Bon Iver

Well, I guess I’m gonna jump on the cool train this week and plug the new, eponymous Bon Iver record before its release tomorrow, 6/21. NPR’s Stephen Thompson calls it a “grand, chance-taking record”. And if this glowing pitchfork review is any cultural indicator, it looks like the ‘chance-taking’ new direction will generally be very positively received.

For my part, after giving the album one full sitting, via NPR’s First Listen, I found myself quite taken with most of it. This was amplified for me by the fact that I’ve never really been that taken with Bon Iver before and had no particular expectations going in.

What quickly grabbed me about this record is how much fuller, richer, and varied it is in the instrumentation, arrangement, sounds, and dynamics department. Founder / Frontman Justin Vernon’s unmistakable voice is still very much present here, providing pleasantly floating and generally engaging melodies. But, on first impression, it seems that primarily the warmth of the fuller and more diverse instrumentation and arrangements has successfully pulled me in in a way that previous, more sparse Bon Iver releases have not.

Anyway, they’ve got quite a lock down on the album prior to release, it seems, so the only streaming / embeddable thing I could find to share is the video for the first single, ‘Calgary’. It’s not my favorite on the record, but it’s easily the most up-tempo, pop-ish track of the lot, for whatever that’s worth. Of course, at least until the album’s release tomorrow, you can also listen to the full record and/or individual songs at the NPR site. Highly recommended tracks: ‘Perth’; ‘Holocene’; and ‘Beth/Rest’. Go Listen here.