the winter of our discontent

It Still Sounds Like Bon Iver Is Mostly Dead

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 11: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white.) Justin Vernon of Bon Iver performs on stage at the Sydney Opera House on March 11, 2012 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Justin Vernon at a Bon Iver gig in 2012. Photo: Mark Metcalfe/2012 Getty Images

Justin Vernon is busy with his slew of bands and his Kanye albums and all kinds of stuff, but it appears Bon Iver might be deader than a blade of Wisconsin grass beneath a crush of January snow. The ghost of Vernon’s comment about feeling “the need to walk away from it while I still care about it” lingers, even a year since it was said. Now there’s a little more clarity, and it’s also kind of crappy.

“I don’t really write songs anymore. The last Bon Iver record was a very ‘sitting down with a guitar and writing’ kind of record,” Vernon tells Australia’s Triple J. “I really have to be in a specific headspace to even begin to illuminate an idea that would create another Bon Iver record, and I’m just not there. I’m really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there’s only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I’m not in a hurry to go back to that temperature. All of the music I’ve been making shifting away from Bon Iver feels really good … so if I ever do go back to Bon Iver it will be all the better for it.” Solace-seekers, promptly turn to “Re: Stacks” or this cool live piano version of “Beth/Rest.” Those who can bear an unspecified amount of years unsure if Bon Iver shall ever rise again, by all means spin the suitably Iverish new Volcano Choir album, Repave!

It Still Sounds Like Bon Iver Is Mostly Dead