The three songs that comprise Bon Iver’s new record SABLE, emerged from a long-gestating breakdown. Think about the journey Justin Vernon has been on across the past two decades: For Emma Forever Ago, high profile collaborations on records by artists like Kanye West and Taylor Swift, throwing music festivals in his city, and the increasingly layered and elaborate touring and recording machine that Bon Iver became. An electricity began to swell in Vernon’s chest. Being Bon Iver meant playing a part, and intentionally leaning into that role meant frequently pressing hard on a metaphorical bruise. He developed literal physical symptoms from deep anxiety and constant pressure. At the end of his rope, maybe done with music, and thinking increasingly about the process of healing, he finally found the time to unpack years of built-up darkness just as the lockdown began.
These songs are reflections of unfinished business, of guilt and anguish. “I’m a sable/ and honey, us the fable,” he sings in the record’s closing track. Some of Vernon’s best songs are the saddest ones, and there’s a kind of unintentional toxic reinforcement that comes when everyone praises your most depressed instincts. SABLE, is named for near-blackness, the record an externalized projection of his turmoil. This trio of songs represents an unburdening from one of the most trying eras in Vernon’s life. There was a time not long ago where Vernon intentionally hid his face. Here, the blinds are open.