Bon Iver announces new album "22, A Million" and releases two strange, new singles.
Written by Christoph Grosse and Dimitri Kandilanaftis on August 15th, 2016
The Justin Vernon-led project Bon Iver have finally broken their five year silence as they gear up to release their LP, titled 22, A Million. Their fans have surely been eagerly awaiting new music since 2011’s Bon Iver, Bon Iver. The two trippy, psych-folk singles, which were both released this past Friday (8/12/16) as lyric videos, are an absolute mouthful, with the titles “22 (OVER S∞∞N) [Bob Moose Extended Cab Version]” and “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄ (Extended Version)”. With strange, edgy titles like that, you can expect some abrasive and weird sounds within these singles, and Bon Iver delivers to discordant effect.
The first video, “22 (OVER S∞∞N), features a close up shot of Justin’s lower face. A lighter is put to his beard, causing flames to pour from his mouth and light up his features while the lyrics flash by. The song is quiet, and contains a looping, distorted vocal chant. Justin’s voice features his trademark electronic distortion and his delivery is followed by a sax solo. He concludes with the line, “It might be over soon.” Watch the lyric video below.
Gliding through the dirty glitchiness of Bon Iver’s latest experimental single release “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄,” listeners will find themselves lost in a malfunctioning matrix of defective yet oddly intriguing sounds, tones, and misfiring rhythms – the track is gritty and imperfect, and therein lies its strange and peculiarly addicting appeal.
The music video starts off with flickering arrays of symbols, numbers, even dice; a pastiche of colors and graphs emerge, returning back to the image theme of dice right before the video takes off following the dizzying lyrics of the song. Predicting what Bon Iver says next is as luck-driven as the roll of the dice. “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄,” is a fever dream wrapped in abstract and robotic electronic hisses; a study in abstract depressionism. Watch the lyric video below.
22, A Million is available for preorder now.