The Tripwire » Dark Was The Night

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon Talks New Material, Being Awesome

Michael Cranston — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:40:26 +0000

So Bon Iver’s folk masterpiece For Emma, Forever Ago was our #3 album of 2008 and all-round really damn awesome. So it’s no surprise we’re anxious to keep you updated on lead songwriter Just Vernon’s various happenings: jamming with his high-school band, performing at charity benefits and rocking out on David Letterman. Now comes word of new material — both solo and now with a band.

The latest update comes from Pitchfork’s mini-interview with Vernon after the Dark Was the Night performance. Vernon spoke about writing material with his new band called the Volcano Choir which is “mostly choir stuff”, which makes me think (and hope) it’ll be basically the intro to “Lump Sum” on repeat. As for new Bon Iver material, he’s “working on stuff.” Fuck yeah! What kind of stuff? Acoustic? Ambient? Folk? DUB?! We’re just going to have to wait to find out.

Here are selected excerpts from the interview.

Pitchfork: Have you been working on any new music out there?

JV: Yeah, I have a new project called the Volcano Choir with my favorite band, Collections of Colonies of Bees– if the world was perfect, they would be as big as U2. It’s this really liberating thing– like I’m in a new band. We started collaborating three years ago and just this year we started to realize we had nine or 10 tracks almost done. So we got together up at my studio and finished it. I sing on it, but there aren’t a lot of lyrics. It’s mostly choir stuff.

It’s definitely more on the experimental side of things. I don’t know if we’ll play shows because it’s all really textural and landscape-y, but I think it’s coming out in September.

Pitchfork: Are you working on new Bon Iver material, too?

JV: I got home from Australia [in January] and it took me like two months to even get my songwriting chops up because I didn’t write any songs while on the road. But I’m working on stuff. Right now everything sounds like a Bruce Hornsby song, which is fun. [laughs] But I’m not telling myself when I want to be done. I’m waiting for it to reveal itself, rather than go after it and be nervous about the next record or whatever. And all that stuff is behind me– I’m not worried about it at all.

Pitchfork: After touring the world last year, did you ever consider recording somewhere else or not going back to Wisconsin right away?

JV: Actually, I was pretty serious about staying in Australia for a couple months earlier this year because I felt so hastened by the Wisconsin thing. Even though it’s the only place I want to be, there was a time when everything felt like it was imploding in my head. It was a whole lot of “me” and it was a little unbearable at times– borderline embarrassing, even. It didn’t last long, though, and as soon as I got home everything flooded back. It all boils down to that common denominator of stillness and trying to self-discover– I guess it just feels good when I’m there.

Pitchfork: The backstory about you recording For Emma in your dad’s cabin really took off and became this kind of myth. Do you feel like you never want to step inside that cabin again?

JV: No, it’s totally cool. Though it was distracting sometimes because I was wondering if people were actually into the music, but over time I’ve realized they are. I think the next chapter isn’t about proving anything. From the beginning, the concept of Bon Iver has been about our place in the world and our sentimentality, if you will. Hopefully, I’ll have many decades of a career to explore that.

I think if you feel weird and self-conscious about that kind of stuff– which happened to me at some points last year– that means your ego is really kicking in. You can understand how people get to be assholes in this business because it’s like you’re getting pumped full of your own thing so much, you get ungrounded. That’s a dangerous place to be.

Dark Was The Night (David Byrne, Sharon Jones, Feist, Bon Iver, The National, Dirty Projectors, My Brightest Diamond & More) @ Radio City Music Hall | NYC

Rez Avissar — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:17:04 +0000

[Photos and words by Rez Avissar]

Big concert, and currently, every mag large and small in New York is raving about how amazing it was. I had to come out to check out what was in store, as the lineup read like a who’s who of upper-echelon indie rock, crowned by Byrne, plus Sharon Jones!?!? Of course, when you pack this many acts into a night something has to give, and each artist performed four songs or less, sort of bite-sized micro-sets.

The highlights of the night were the David Byrne tunes from the Dark Was The Night comps over the years (including “Knotty Pine” w/ Dirty Projectors, “”Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes” w/ Bon Iver, “Waters of March” w/ Feist and “Don’t Fence Me In” w/ drummer crew) which sounded amazing, the latter three evoking his African-cribbing heyday, an alternate version of “Flume” featuring Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), “Train Song,” Feist’s Vashti Bunyan cover from the compilation, and the finale where everyone came out at once to do “This Land Is Your Land” which got Sharon Jones REMIXED. I’m not usually one for venues this large, but the sound was incredibly crisp and clear. Lots of collabs, lots of memorable moments. I’ll let the other reviewers recount them to you:

BrooklynVegan
Stereogum
Rolling Stone
Happy Genius Heroes
PAPER mag
Metro Distortion
Quiet Color
Second Doubles
New York Rock Market
Music Mix, Entertainment Weekly
Black Raptor [w/ video]

Google Blog Search: Dark Was The Night

NPR is supposed to have video of the entire concert shortly.

We were only allowed to shoot for the first song of each act (ugh). Here’s what I came up with.

[Dirty Projectors w/ David Byrne]

[John Carlin of Dark Was The Night and Red Hot]

[My Brightest Diamond]

[The National.]

[Dave Sitek]

[David Byrne]

[intermission]

[Bon Iver]

[Feist]

[Sharon Jones]

[everyone]

Look who decides to make a cameo – Annie Clark (St. Vincent)!

The National – “So Far Around The Bend”

Michael Cranston — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:28:51 +0000

Featured on The National-curated Dark Was the Night AIDS benefit compilation is the lovely “So Far Around the Bend”. We haven’t heard much from The National since their incredible Boxer LP in 2007, but “So Far” is the perfect place to catch up.

Matt Berninger’s token baritone hums like before, bright piano and light horns instantly gratify in their familiarity, and as always (my favorite indie-rock drummer) Bryan Devendorf beats along like a heartbeat giving the track its life. Berninger shows his mastery of poetics as he weaves peculiar imagery and blunt statements into one another seamlessly. The song is about a “serious lady living off a teacup full of cherries,” she’s “praying for Pavement to get back together.” She’s supposed to go somewhere, but will not be leaving New York City. This perfectly serene song makes me miss this woman I never knew, and Berninger’s nostalgic undertone makes me miss a place I’ve never been.

The National – “So Far Around The Bend”