Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on ‘Sable, Fable’
Bon Iver, the Grammy-winning musical project fronted by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon, has started a new era with the release of “Sable, Fable,” the project’s first album in six years.
There are 12 songs in the album, an exploration of darkness (“Sable”) and light (“Fable”). “They were sort of cooking at the same time … ‘Sable’ is like the darkness in reality, ‘Fable’ is the brightness and hope, you know, and envisioning the future. If ‘Sable’ is the hobbit, ‘Fable’ is the lord of the rings,” said Vernon.
It was produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack, engineered by Ian Gold and Vernon, mastered by Heba Kadry, and primarily recorded at Vernon’s April Base. Vernon shared, “‘I,I’ (Bon Iver’s 2019 album) was very much all homies on deck. This one has plenty of homies on deck, but is much more of a solitary process other than Jim-E Stack. I mean, Jim-E Stack has been my guide to myself, the person to remind me of my own strength. Nobody else is, you know, is more responsible than him for really just showing me myself in this process.”
He added, “I think with ‘Fable,’ it’s a lot less of me being like, ‘Ooh, I’m going to control this and that.’ And it’s very much more about melody and lyrics, and the music is just sort of this kind of, you know, poppy, shiny dressing on what I’m trying to say.”
For Vernon, songwriting is a healing process. “It’s really weird how songwriting has been my therapy, my self-understanding. It’s funny, having actually finished the album … They’ve been teaching new lessons since then. They’re continually teaching me about where I’ve been at or, you know, “If Only I Could Wait” means something [a] little different to me than it did six weeks ago in some strange way. It’s the healing. If ‘Sable’ is like that dark crack, stuck place, know, “Fable” is very much of the hope, and the healing, and the moving on.”
The track “If Only I Could Wait” features Danielle Haim of the band Haim. Vernon shared, “During the pandemic, I was on my own. And Haim’s ‘Women in Music Pt. III’ came out and I hadn’t been clocked over the head by an album like that in so many years. I just couldn’t stop listening to it. I think I had met the gals like 2009 … but we were never homies, or in touch, or anything. Danielle reached out through Jim-E to see if we could make some music. And I remember it was Feb. 22—it was 2/22/22. And they showed up in this snowstorm. And we ended up having to be like … stuck in my little tiny house for five days. We just made a lot of f*cking music, the three of us … I think that song, it just came out. It was in the air that week. There was magic going on in that room with the three of us that week. And that’s like very much what distilled from it for me.”
“Day One,” meanwhile, features Dijon and Flock of Dimes. Vernon says Dijon is his favorite artist in the world and he calls Jenn Wasner of Flock of Dimes “our secret weapon,” “the most powerful, underrated producer, and self-recording musician there is on the planet.” “One hour later or something, she sends back this verse … I started to cry, man, when I heard it … There was a point for about six months I couldn’t listen to it without crying.”
Vernon said, “It’s like, ‘I would like to have the coolest artists on the planet on my record, please.”
He sees “Sable” and “Fable” as two chapters of a long story. “‘Sable’ and ‘Fable’ are one coin, you know. Both speak to the other. ‘Fable’ is very much … when I was making it, I think it’s what I was hoping would happen. And now that it’s done, I just have to be in step and I have to be present.”
