Featured Album
22, A Million by Bon Iver
About the Album
This is my favorite album ever made. Released by American indie/alternative band Bon Iver on September 30, 2016, this album has remained a central part of my musical identity over the past 6 years. The record sees the band depart from their earlier folk roots and dive headfirst into a glitched-out electronic soundscape that balances the innately human aspects of Bon Iver with the inhuman electronic wall of sound that the band showcase.
The band use a variety of instruments and odd techniques to bring a new sound to the table. One song is simply frontman Justin Vernon singing into a modified vocoder to warp and modulate his voice into a lamenting choir of autotuned power, while others take a folk and blues song and run it through so many plugins that the track begins clipping in an oddly beautiful way.
Ultimately, I find this to be one of the most beautiful and human albums ever put to tape. The album has a fascination with numbers and symbols, which you can see from the album artwork and track titles, which makes it all the better when the final track of the album uses the lyric "and the days have no numbers" to wrap up the musical journey.
About the Artist
Bon Iver is an American indie folk band founded by Justin Vernon from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
The band's first album, 'For Emma, Forever Ago' was largely a solo project by Justin Vernon, and was released on July 8, 2007. The album features stripped back guitar and drum songs with Vernon's crooning falsetto decorating the majority of tracks. The song 'Skinny Love' was the lead single and continues to be a massive success for the band.
Vernon was joined by fellow friends and musicians to create the follow-up self titled album, 'Bon Iver, Bon Iver' in 2011. The arrangements of this album are more lush and springlike as opposed to the colder winter sounds of 'For Emma, forever Ago.' This album won the band a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album at the 2012 Awards.
After the band went on hiatus for five years, Bon Iver returned with their third album, '22, A Million' in 2016. This album featured a more heavily electronic sound that marked a departure from their purely folk and indie roots.
The fourth and latest Bon Iver record, 'i,i' was released late in the summer of 2019. This album incorporated the electronic sounds that '22, A Million' found the band experimenting with in a new direction that blended the electronic sound with the more lush arrangements of their second record.