Pitchfork refers to Justin Vernon of Bon Iver as a “bearded dude with an instrument that feels warm and personal and close regardless of setting.” But, as every modern day hipster knows, there's more to Vernon than Bon Iver. A look into the various projects of Justin Vernon after the jump.
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1. DeYarmond Edison
This traditional four-man folk band runs on
finger-picked acoustic guitar rhythms and heavy brushwork on the drum
kit. Stripped of all stylistic and electronic filters, a younger Vernon
sings far less subtly and with much more physical intensity. What's
more, DeYarmond Edison captures the era in which falsetto was not a
vital part of Vernon's expression; the band's self-titled album contains
lots of throaty yells and shouts in chest voice.
Taking its name
from Vernon's two middle names, DeYarmond Edison was the premature
crystallization of Vernon's musical endeavors. He and three other
members met as high school students at a local music festival. Given two
albums, success in the music scene of Eau Claire, Wisconsin,
liver-destroying mono (Vernon) and girlfriend problems (Vernon, once
again), Vernon and the other members parted ways relatively peacefully.
Respectively, they formed Bon Iver and freak folk group Megafaun.
Every
romantic knows the story that follows: For three months, Vernon labored
alone in his father's Wisconsin cabin to birth the beloved album, For
Emma, Forever Ago.
Listen: “Silent Signs”
2. Bon Iver – From Forever Ago to Bon Iver
One
thing is true about Vernon's newest album Bon Iver: His second album
builds sonic signatures where the first had left exposure. “Holocene”
fills with tight 32nd note rhythms what had been a lonely fluidity in For Emma, Forever Ago. Vernon even brings back his chest voice, a nod
to his original vocal style with DeYarmond Edison.
Each of the songs
are sprinkled with a motley of instruments – a sax jab here, '80s era
bell synth there – refitted to construct the Bon Iver sound. But this is
not to say that Bon Iver has evolved beyond recognition. Embedded into
the tracks are still the same wolf pack yowls, distant and shrill. The
lyrics are just as enigmatic and open to interpretation as those from
Vernon's previous album. Metaphors referring to physical labor,
painstakingly sprung with meanings as rich as the polyphonic soundscapes
in each of the album's tracks, resurfaced Robert Frosts' Birches from
my memory. And how conveniently awesome this connection to Frost,
especially when Vernon originally derived his project name from the
French phrase “Bon Hiver,” or good winter.
Listen: Flume
3. Gayngs
Released in
2010, Gayngs' only record Relayted encapsulates bluesy guitar and
organ riffs, dirty beatboxing and a variety of echoed vocals and sampled
noise, all recorded at 69 beats per minute. Based in Minneapolis, the
project consists of over 25 musicians, including Justin Vernon and Mike
Noyce of Bon Iver, and Megafaun. Gayngs performed at Coachella 2011.
The
first track on the album, “On the Gaudy Side of Town,” summons an
R&B vocal style from Vernon, hooded and reminiscent of his usual
yowl. Download the track free on Jagjaguwar's website.
Listen: “Cry”
4. Volcano Choir
The
sounds of Volcano Choir are the result of Vernon's vocals frosting the
post-rock melodies of Collections of Colonies of Bees. From this
project, you'll often hear sustained pitches, sung in the place of
complex wordplay, so that Vernon's voice is used predominantly as a
harmonic element. Expect lots of electronic-based sampling, an
assortment of percussive sounds, and the clashing of synthesizers'
harmonies against Vernon's vocals in the album that took half a decade
to complete, Unmap (2009).
Listen: “Island, IS”
5. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Vernon's collaboration with Kanye West ended up with Vernon singing vocals on nearly half the songs on West's latest. His voice is the first thing you hear on the album's first track, “Dark Fantasy” and the album finale, “Lost in the World,” is based on Bon Iver's “Woods.” Reportedly, Kanye gave Vernon a phone call asking if he could sample “Woods.” He said in a New York Magazine interview, “We were talking on the phone for 30 to 45 minutes about music and life in general, where the record was at … He was interested in my aesthetic in a recording and production standpoint…[West] said he was a fan of For Emma and really wanted to talk to me about the vocal techniques I'd been using in the studio.” In the same interview, Vernon talked about his side projects: “Every one of my side projects I've done — Volcano Choir, Gayngs, this Kanye thing — they've all fed in different ways in the exploratory sense.”
