After spending three months in a secluded cabin in the woods of western Wisconsin, Bon Iver was created and his first album, For Emma, Forever Ago was released to massive success.
After winning the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and being featured on Kanye West’s album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Justin Vernon, the man behind Bon Iver, would soon release three more albums.
A self-titled album Bon Iver, Bon Iver, the numeric 22, A Million and most recently in 2019 i,i.
However, after a five-year hiatus, Vernon posted a series of cryptic videos onto photo sharing website Instagram that got fans talking. One where Vernon is just staring at the camera, another where his shadow appears and a third where someone assumed to be Vernon sinks deep into a body of water.
After these three videos, Vernon announced S P E Y S I D E, which would become the middle track on the album. This track feels like a return to form and more like Vernon’s earlier work while still fitting in the theme with the rest of the EP.
In S P E Y S I D E, Vernon sings about how he feels change has come but nothing has changed and how he feels like has been left behind because of it. This song really shows Vernon’s themes of disappointment that has built through the first two songs.
In the EP’s opening, THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS, the repetitive lyrical format that Vernon uses helps to amplify the things he says. The guitar and bass in the background of this song give it a haunting aura and leaves the listener in the mood for more.
The last song, AWARDS SEASON, is the best from this EP. Vernon features a saxophone in the song at 2:49 and it’s by far the best part of the album. Up until it starts to play, the song is relatively quiet in the background with just Vernon singing in relative silence before being surrounded by this quick burst of music before going back to silence.
The themes of this album are loneliness and disappointment culminating in a reset that couldn’t be summed up better if there were more songs.
In an interview with the New Yorker about his new EP, Vernon defends the choice to only feature three songs.
“(The EP) feel like an equidistant triangle.” Vernon said, “It’s three, it couldn’t be any longer.”