With the amount of new albums and artists that can be found through the internet, it is important for artists who have recently made a name for themselves to remain in their new fans' consciousness.
Considering the alacrity of musical trends since music has gone digital and the new focus on songs over albums, the trusted format of the ep has become even more important tool for artists to utilize. Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, who recorded his album For Emma, Forever Ago secluded in a cabin, only to find a huge online audience, has just recorded his first new material since his breakout.
Familiar Ground for Bon Iver
For the most part, the ep covers rather familiar ground for Bon Iver. The ep begins with "Blood Bank," easily his best song since "Skinny Love." An electric guitar with a slightly dirty tone begins the song along with Vernon's characteristic falsetto. While the previous song epitomizes the heartache and loneliness of the first album, "Blood Bank" finds Vernon with someone to confide in: "that secret that we know/that we don't know how to tell." A sense of warmth and hope permeates the song, and it is obvious that the characters in the song have found something in each other: "as the moon waned to crescent/we started to kiss."
Two Babies : Beach Baby and Babys
The second track, "Beach Baby," begins with a double-tracked Vernon accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. After breezing through a few verses, a steel pedal guitar starts up to finish off the song. At barely over two and a half minutes, the song almost feels like a half-finished idea, though the lines "Only hold 'till your coffee wounds/but don't hurry to speak" imply a sense of caution in saying too much, setting the song up as an example of its own advice.
The third track, "Babys," finds Vernon once again double tracking his vocals over top a simple arrangement, this time on piano. The song finds itself swelling as the line "Summer comes to multiply" repeats until the song quickly fades out.
Accapella
Bon Iver has become a full band since For Emma, Forever Ago, yet there are only a few times on this ep that cultivates a full band sound. The last track, "Woods," does not contain one of those moments as the song consists solely of a multi-tracked Vernon singing the lines "I'm up in the woods/I'm down on my mind/I'm building a still/to slow down the time" over and over again.
The track is the most surprising from the ep, prominently featuring the use of a vocoder, a device known for making human voices sound vaguely robotic. Vernon has managed to make the device sound uncharacteristically organic, but the song still feels like more of an experiment than a fully-realized song.
Clocking in barely over fifteen minutes, this ep feels like a place-holder until a proper full-length is released. For the first track alone, the ep is worth-while release. For fans wanting to hear a more fleshed-out version of Bon Iver, the Daytrotter sessions make for an interesting listen. www.daytrotter.com/article/1359/bon-iver
 |
