{·Bon Iver·}

{·‘09 tour·}

Bon Iver is the name of American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon’s current band and most notable music project to date. The band now also consists of Mike Noyce and Sean Carey.

After the breakup of a band, relationship, and bout with sickness (mononucleosis of the liver), Vernon left Raleigh and moved back to Wisconsin spending three months in his father’s cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin. According to Vernon, it was during this time that the “Bon Iver” moniker first entered his mind; while bedridden with mononucleosis, he began watching the television series Northern Exposure on DVD. One episode depicts a group of citizens in Alaska, where the show is set, emerging from their homes into the first snowfall of the winter and wishing one another a “bon hiver” (French for “good winter”). This was initially transcribed by Vernon as “boniverre”; however, when he learned of its proper French spelling, he elected not to use it, deciding “hiver” reminded him too much of “liver”, the source of his illness at the time.

{biography}

I’m up in the woodsI’m down on my mind

I’m building a stillto slow down the time

{For Emma, Forever Ago}This album is a quiet marvel — just the sound of a sad guitar boy locking himself up in a cabin deep in the woods, singing, “Can’t you find a clue/When your eyes are painted Sinatra blue?” Justin Vernon wrote the songs for his debut album during a three-month retreat in rural Wisconsin, recovering from what sounds like one mother grizzly of a broken romance. You can hear the isolation in the way he sings cracked ballads like “Flume,” “Re: Stacks” and “The Wolves (Act I and II)” — he’s been stuck on the “foreign roads” of heartbreak so long, he can’t even remember how he got there.

The music evokes the acoustic side of Nick Cave or Neil Young, with his voice ranging from a creepy falsetto (sometimes double-tracked for hallucinatory effect) to a moan. Yet For Emma, Forever Ago never turns into a pity party, because Vernon has a light touch, with zero interest in narrative or confessional lyrics. He doesn’t tell you anything about who Emma is or what exactly she did to him forever ago — but she must be proud she could put him through enough agony to inspire such great songs.

Rob SheffieldRolling Stone

“You can hear the isolation in the way he sings”

May 15 2009

All Tomorrow’s Parties, Minehead, Somerset, UK

May 18 2009

Brighton Festival, Brighton

May 19 2009

Zakk, Dusseldorf, Germany

May 20 2009

Übel&Gefaehrlich, Hamburg, Germany

Jun 12 2009

Bonnaroo Festival 2009, Manchester, TN, US

Jun 13 2009

Bonnaroo Festival 2009, Manchester, TN, US

Jul 25 2009

Camp Bestival, Dorset, UK

Aug 12 2009

Oya Festival 2009, Oslo, Norway

Aug 21 2009

Lowlands, Netherlands

Aug 22 2009

Green Man Festival, Powys, Uk

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That secret that you knew But don't know how to tellIt fucks with your honorAnd it teases your head

www.bonivermusic.com