Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has said he would be “very surprised” if he ever makes another full-length album.
The fifth Bon Iver record, ‘SABLE, fABLE’, was released in April via Jagjaguwar, which Vernon produced with Jim-E Stack at his own April Base Studio in Wisonsin, and it has gone on to pick up a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.
Despite its success, Vernon has now strongly hinted that the LP may prove to be the final Bon Iver album, as he has stopped writing songs for the first time in his life.
In an interview with The Times, he spoke about how his music has managed to move so many people. “I’m tapped into the emotion of music – the blue part,” he said. “I have that in me thanks to the thousands of musicians I’ve absorbed, and they’re just in there.”
However, he added: “But I don’t know how much is left. I’ve expelled a lot of it.”
When asked directly if that meant there would be no more Bon Iver albums, he responded: “I would be very surprised. For the first time since I was 12, I’m not writing songs.”
“There aren’t any in here,” he added, pointing at his heart. “I have been writing since puberty and this is unfamiliar territory – but I am accepting it. It’s scary sometimes, but I’m just letting it happen …”
Bon Iver made a major splash with the debut album ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ in 2007, which Vernon recorded in isolation in a cabin in Wisconsin. A 2011 self-titled album, 2016’s ‘22, A Million’ and 2019’s ‘i, i’ followed, as did collaborations with major names such as Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Charli xcx.
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.”
Last month, Bon Iver featured on the new Haim song ‘Tie You Down’, from the group’s deluxe edition of their latest album ‘I Quit’.
Among Bon Iver’s fans is Tom Hiddleston, who told NME earlier this year: “He just has this ability to write joyful music that has a strain of melancholy, and it sounds like he’s discovered a secret that we all knew but forgot about. He’s got an extraordinary gift.”
