MAN IN BLACK: On New EP ‘SABLE,’ Bon Iver Runs Gamut from Anxiety to Hope
Vernon strips his musical project back to its core in first new release in five years
In the space of three sparse songs that blend his trademark oblique lyricism with a newfound frankness, Justin Vernon runs the gamut of emotions from anxiety to acceptance on SABLE, the first new Bon Iver record in five years.
On first listen, the EP – officially released Friday, Oct. 18 – has more in common with Bon Iver’s 2007 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, than the band’s later complex, layered, autotuned work. Though the three songs have different points of origin and inspiration – from Key West, Florida, to Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis – all were recorded at Vernon’s April Base studio outside Eau Claire. Vernon’s guitar and voice (both in baritone and falsetto incarnations) are the primary instruments in the three-song indie folk cycle, and Vernon served as the primary songwriter as well as mixing, engineering, and producing (the latter with Jim-E Stack).
In the songs, as well as accompanying videos directed by fellow Wisconsinite Erinn Springer, Vernon is a figurative and literal man in black, sometimes a mourner reflecting on his own shortcomings, sometimes a preacher proclaiming the possibilities of the future.
In a just-published interview with The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich, Vernon calls the EP “an equidistant triangle, a triptych.” He continues: “It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer. It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope.”
“I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken. And I wondered, maybe I’m pressing the bruise.”
The anxiety is encompassed in the first track, “Things Behind Things Behind Things,” a rumination on being stuck in the past. A media release previewing the EP says the track “dates back to 2020, when Vernon was unsure of his future as an artist.” That original is clear in the lyrics, as when Vernon laments, “I can’t go though the motions. How am I supposed to do this now?” and admits “I am afraid of changing.”
Following Vernon’s definition, the second panel of the triptych, “S P E Y S I D E,” encapsulates guilt – a yearning to replay and replace the past. “I know now that I can’t make good,” he sings, “How I wish I could.” Then, in what could be a lament of any 40-something – Grammy-winning rock star or otherwise – he mourns, “Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would.”
Lastly comes “Awards Season,” the most hopeful and forward-looking of the tracks, which begins with this earnest affirmation: “I can handle way more than I can handle, so I’ll keep reaching for the handle to flood my heart.” The song swoops with pedal steel and a saxophone crescendo before fading back to Vernon’s voice alone.
In The New Yorker interview, Vernon reflects on impact of a career spent baring his soul for an audience.
“There have been times in my career where it has felt like I’m repeating a cycle of heartache,” he says when asked about the titular “sable,” which can mean a near-black shade as well as mourning clothing. “I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken. And I wondered, maybe I’m pressing the bruise. Maybe I’m unknowingly steering this ship into the rocks over and over again, because . . . you know, I’m not, like, famous-on-the-street, People-magazine famous. But there have been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache. So it’s me asking the question: I’m a sable, I’ve been a sable. Am I repeating this cycle of sorrow? Or is this just how sorrow goes, and this is how everyone feels? That’s kind of what it means to me.”
But not all is black, Vernon implies, even when facing down middle age. “And if I look back and see a lot of suffering in my past it’s because I wasn’t treating myself correctly,” he tells Petrusich in an interview that’s also available through The New Yorker Radio Hour Podcast. “Certainly, I’ve had everything I’ve needed to be flourishing, to be a kind and loving person. But when I look back, I see a lot of confusion, anxiety, and despair. So I’ve gotten to this point now – and these songs have really helped me open that door, or whatever the metaphor is – to start a new journey and to be alive and present and grateful from now on, as much as I can be.”
Find the new Bon Iver EP on your preferred platform at bon-iver.lnk.to/SABLE.
