Bon Iver: Echoing Solitude Through Intimacy

There is a documentary, “Alone in the Wilderness,” which is aired every year on PBS. It’s one of those films that if it’s on the TV, I will stop whatever I’m doing and immediately get lost in the narrative.  It is about Richard Proenneke, who moved to Alaska and built a cabin all by himself, and resided there alone for the next 31 years of his life.  The narration and footage make it a classic in the documentary genre.  Last year, Sean Penn directed Into The Wild, a true account of a 24-year-old college graduate, Chris McCandless, who travels across the country and settles in the remote landscape of Alaska, only to die alone months later. Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, (pronounced bohn eevair) moved to a hunting cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin a year ago and recorded one of this year’s masterpieces, For Emma, Forever Ago. 

An artist can choose to completely isolate him or her self from today’s world, a choice of determination to achieve solitude.  To some people, depriving themselves of the modern world is necessary, almost cathartic.  Others, on the contrary, choose never to block out the white noise and technology that constantly bombards their lives, ultimately denying their souls of the intimacy of deprivation and what one can learn in isolation.  Maybe that was the attraction to the great and harsh outdoors, the tranquility of nature, which caused people like Proenneke, McCandless, and Vernon to disconnect from society.

“I don’t feel correct when I’m in New York City,” Vernon matter-of-factly stated.

“I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, but I definitely feel strange when I’m not removed from everything, all of that.  It’s one thing for the human contact and social context of modern times, but it seems like almost everything is touching everything else in the world, and I think it’s good to get out of that cycle sometimes.”

Vernon spent three months alone in a cabin in the middle of a brutal winter that those in the Red River Valley are all too familiar with.  “I was pretty much just left alone, I wasn’t listening to much music.  I just had a lot of quiet.  I think it’s one thing that helped me, just sort of zero in on the art more.” The artist Bon Iver was born out of the material and sessions that Vernon wrote and experienced in that cabin.  The result was a soulful and hauntingly beautiful album that sets Bon Iver apart from contemporary singer/songwriters. “I made the art, and I just did it as a natural process, as a way to get through a certain time of my life, like most art is.  There was no plan or massive idea or thought process that went into [the recording process], but I really feel that it was meant to be.  I’m just as confused and magnetized and interested in the album as everyone else is.  In a way, I feel not responsible for it.  It sounds weird, but I feel that I definitely was there to erect it but it was almost… it was an album that was meant to be there and I just jotted it down.”

Vernon’s voice isn’t what one would associate with most modern folk singers.  Instead, his falsetto and the deep tremor in his throat suggest more of an urban singer who sings on the corner in front of a Baptist church in Chicago, not a resident of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His vocal style does not come across as worn out, nor do his lyrics and song structures, which are anything but conventional.
“I’ve just recently spun into my own [voice].  It’s new, yet it’s more like me than any other voice I’ve had.  It wasn’t necessarily just moving to the cabin, but just everything in my life changed when I decided to do that.  I think everything was changing; I was making changes in my life and I think the cabin certainly helped.”

Justin Vernon’s experience produced Bon Iver’s narrative; one that for the listener searching for solitude, is easy to get lost in.

If You Go

WHAT: Bon Iver w/June Panic
WHERE: The Aquarium
WHEN: Monday, April 14th 10pm
HOW MUCH: $6
WHO: 21+ID
INFO: (701) 235-5913