Location, location, location. Location is key, everything in its right place and all that. From one of the most obvious examples – Sigur Ros’ affinity with the lunar landscapes of their Icelandic homeland – through to The Strokes’ allegiance with New York and The Libertines to London and, perhaps most appropriate in this instance, Brightblack Morning Light’s tipi-dwelling, wilderness psychedelia. Bands that have no sense of setting or context tend to lack identity and thus reason, with a few notable exceptions (My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins, for instance, who have in effect called the shifting ether home). Either the many nuances or bold obviousness of a setting can inform or, more than that, channel the music that forms under its spell. Or equally it could be that certain temperaments are simply drawn to natural habitats in order to form a natural symbiotic balance. Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, is an exemplary representation of the importance and necessity of location.
His circumstances are practically a matter of folklore now. Following the break up of a band and a relationship, without job or direction, he retreated to his father’s log cabin in deepest midwinter Wisconsin woodland with his gear. He hunted for food, chopped wood to burn, grew a beard and generally went through a bit of a primeval catharsis, tending to his tattered emotions in therapeutic isolation. This album is the sound of that catharsis, unplugged, massaged by the calming influence of nature, feeling the sharp wind on its skin, or the warmth of the fire against its toes, eyes shut tight. Listening to these tracks you can practically taste the pine, feel the seasons changing around you and the ebb of emotions along with them.
‘Flume’ opens the record, a simple strummed guitar, delicate and unobtrusive as his spiritual falsetto flutters, amassing smoky harmonies as it goes and establishing a Zen-like milieu for him to exist in over the coming 9 tracks. It’s a practice spun harder as ‘Lump Sum’ rises forth, a minor percussive pulse gathering, bringing blood to its veins. Reference points include Iron and Wine’s quiet, careful exalted folk and the rough edges of Will Oldham’s dark, pensive posturing, while the droning background ambience recalls, in an utterly organic sense, the way TV On The Radio treat the meeting of melody, both vocally, electronically and in amalgamation. If you stripped Devendra Banhart back to the core, took all of his flamboyance and opulence, or transplanted Jeff Buckley in isolation, you would at least approximate Bon Iver. In just over 30 minutes you can, if you choose, be there with him, stirring pondered articulations, throwing thoughts onto the breeze, your own existence put quietly into context by the natural world.