Bon Iver have announced a range of unconventional brand partnerships in connection with their new album ‘SABLE, fABLE’.
Justin Vernon and co. released their fifth studio album on Friday (April 11) via Jagjaguwar. It serves as the follow-up to the 2024 EP ‘SABLE’ and it has been produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack at Vernon’s own April Base studio in Wisconsin.
To mark the release, the band have unveiled a list of over two dozen brands that they have partnered with to promote the album, many of which are artisanal food and drink companies who have created special salmon-themed products.
They include Courage Bagels, who are providing a Bon Iver salmon sable plate, Fell + Cole, who are offering a whiskey ice cream and a grapefruit, thyme and whiskey sorbet, and Kometen Brood, who have made a range of sourdough salmon pastries.
See the entire list of collaborations here:
In a four-star review of ‘SABLE, fABLE’, NME commended the album which was feared to be the departure of the Bon Iver project, but instead is being seen as a “rebirth”.
It reads: “Though this is not Bon Iver’s answer to ‘Brat’ summer by any stretch of the imagination, many of these same existential questions also linger on ‘SABLE, fABLE’ – a record that grapples with his own identity as much as it does the twists and turns of life. Though some fans feared this might well be an epilogue to the Bon Iver project, it comes across as more of a rebirth.”
In other Vernon-related news, he opened up about his collaborations with Taylor Swift and Charli XCX on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He teamed up with Charli on her ‘Brat’ remix album last year for the song ‘I think about it all the time’, and collaborated with Swift on her 2020 album ‘Folklore’ and its follow-up, ‘Evermore’.
On Fallon, Vernon revealed he sampled Bonnie Raitt‘s ‘Nick Of Time’ for his collaboration with Charli, explaining: “My friend Danielle Haim told me, ‘you should sample ‘Nick Of Time’, and I was like: ‘That’s such a good idea’, because Charli’s song was about running out of time.”
He went on to say he and Raitt “have been friendly over the years”, calling her “my number one” and “the greatest living singer”. When calling her to request usage of the sample, Raiit apparently said “Yep – let’s do it”.
Meanwhile, he also spoke about his song with Swift, ‘Exile’. He told Fallon watching videos of Taylor Swift’s fans singing ‘Exile’ felt “out-of-body”.
