Graham Reid | | 1 min read
From
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes as a double set in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and credits.
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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The landscape of popular music is in constant flux and development with new genres emerging all the time (coldwave, grime, folktronica and many even more obscure categories).
Mostly the label is simply a taxonomic device to guide listeners and although the alt/indie category has long since lost any meaning, it's still a rough guide to where the artists exist on the spectrum.
In the past two decades the landscape of alt.folk, country.folk and other offshoots of Americana has changed considerably: new strands have emerged (Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, Nadia Reid, Joanna Newsom), old veins tapped again (Bill Callahan, Vashti Banyan, the late Bill Fay) and some dark determination has emerged (Ireland's Lankum).
It's been almost 20 years since Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) released his breakthrough country-folk album For Emma, Long Ago, a collection of personal songs born of three months isolation in a snowbound cabin in Wisconsin as he considered his broken life in his mid 20s.
But like whatever genre he was in, Vernon continued to morph and change.
Four years on from For Emma he released a self-titled album which was more musically ambition, in places heavier and more alt.pop-orientated; 22, A Million (2016) brought electronica and aggressively assertive beats and I,I (2019) was different again with heavyweight guests (Aaron Dessner, Moses Sumney, James Blake).
Like Neil Young in 1980s, Vernon was challenging himself and his audience, shedding folk purists along the way.
Now we arrive at this double album, on vinyl the first record a12 inch, 45rpm of three songs previously released as SABLE, the second fABLE an album of nine songs.
He opens with scatterings of self-doubt close to paranoia (“I can't go through the motions, how'm I supposed to do this now?” on Things Behind Things Behind Things) and emotional stasis with a smidgen of self-pity (the fiddle-coloured Speyside with “maybe you can still make a man from me”).
But these songs give way to ambitious Cali-folk pop and laidback soul embellished by lap steel, samples, synths, guest vocalists (Danielle Haim) and saxophones.
All steer Vernon's music into a more upbeat and contemporary sound which locate him the world of sophisticated beat-based R'n'B (Everything is Peaceful Love), busy 1970s soul (Day One) and other polished LA soul-pop territories (Walk Home).
Some excellent moments here – the laidback There's a Rhythmn (sic) – but while hearing what's been abandoned lost over the decades it's harder to feel convinced about what's been gained.
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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