22, A MILLION BON IVER PITCHFORK REVIEW
Bon Iver五年来的首张专辑出人意料地走向了陌生和实验性的方向。但是，在编排的杂音和处理过的声音背后，是关于不确定性的深情歌曲。
在Thomas Pynchon的《Inherent Vice》里有一句话，在这句话里，Doc，一个小有名气的瘾君子，思考着60年代的解卝体，想知道这十年是否只是 "光的小括号，可能会终究会结束，一切都会迷失，被带回黑暗中。" 对时间的思考是一种有趣的方式，整个时代可以被推回过去，被抹去。但在Bon Iver的第三张专辑《22，A Million》中，贾斯汀-弗农（Justin Vernon）与Doc的忧郁思考相呼应。这是一些飘逸的、骨架式的歌曲，它们与已知的轨迹抗争，然后有可能完全消失。22, A Million》在音乐上可能与《For Emma, Forever Ago》（《For Emma, Forever Ago》）相去甚远，这是Vernon在2007年推出的民谣曲系列，几乎没有了原声鼓，取而代之的是Messina的电子喘息声，这是Vernon和他的工程师Chris Messina发明的Prismizer软件插件和一些硬件的组合。但这两张专辑有一个共同的意识形态。所有的东西都去了，被带回了黑暗。
22，A Million》无疑是Bon Iver最困难的唱片；这是一个似乎已经对既定的、容易被解读的形式失去兴趣的词曲作者的作品，Vernon几乎在他的整个职业生涯中都在暗示这种可能性。2006年，当时住在北卡罗来纳州的Vernon在感情上被一场完美的暴风雨摧毁了：他的乐队解散了，他的关系解卝体了，他得了急性单核细胞增多症。他做了任何一个理智的人都会做的事：去了威斯康星州农村的狩猎小屋，喝一帮啤酒，看无休止的 "北极光"，用他的原声吉他写了一批寂寞的、渴望的民谣。他的高亢而清脆的口音让这些作品有一种异域的气质，仿佛是在寒风中吹来的。
对Emma来说，《Forever Ago》本身就是一张实验性的唱片--艾玛的人声和乐句都很不寻常，它的故事是印象派的，断断续续的，但因为它是如此沉重的心碎和失落，所以它给人的感觉是亲切、真实、轻松。22、A Million》相对来说是比较奇怪的、探索性的，但它的忧虑更多的是存在感。专辑开场时，高亢起伏的声音（Vernon对着合成器、采样器和音序器组合的OP-1演唱）宣布："它可能很快就会结束"，然后继续探讨无常的概念。几乎所有的歌曲都包含卝着某种问题，就像Vernon对腐朽的必然性的反思，让他对他所见过的每一件事都进行了拷问。由于他的歌词是叙事性的--他们一直都是内涵性的，而不是训诂学的--他似乎更关注生命是否有意义。"哦，那我们要怎么哭？因为它曾经可能没有意义？"他在 "715 - CRΣΣKS "中问道。
Kanye West曾称Vernon为他 "最喜欢的活生生的艺术家"，他一直以来都对 "Woods "赞不绝口，这是2009年Blood Bank EP的压轴曲目，也是 "715 - CRΣΣKS "的前奏，本身就是一种扭曲的capella jam。"Woods "没有任何乐器，只是Vernon通过Auto-Tune唱了五分钟，与自己鬼斧神工的和声。现在回想起来，"Woods "给人的感觉就像一个启示：它不仅是对流行音乐的未来的一个意外肯定--艺术家们积极地扭曲自己的声音，把声音喂进机器里，以建立起幽灵般的、唠叨的歌曲，反映出疏离感，可以说是我们这个时代的统卝治者，也是对Vernon自己的轨迹的肯定。
从迪伦（Dylan）到尼尔-杨（Neil Young），很多受人喜爱的当代艺术家都放弃了所谓的民谣音乐的纯洁性，而更努力地推动作品，创作出不那么依赖传统的艺术，而是投资于当下的陌生感和对未来的集体不确定性。在现有的道路上交易--这太容易了。Vernon并不是一个人在渴望真正的创新，渴望真正的创新，渴望那些似乎与实际的时间和地点紧密相连，并反映出实际时间和地点的歌曲。Radiohead自从Kid A之后，就一直在反映出对电子和虚拟生活的侵袭的焦虑，这张唱片也要求他们不得不改变自己作为吉他摇滚乐队的初衷。
22, A Million》除了在声音上的努力之外，也是一张关于如何卝在迷茫的时代中前进的个人专辑。Vernon偶尔会用宗教的语言来表达他的焦虑，有些是显性的（"圣洁"、"确认"），有些则是朴实的白话文（"所以当我站在车站，""我可以在光中前进"）。他抽选了两首福音歌曲。马哈莉亚-杰克逊（Mahalia Jackson）1962年的 "How I Got Over "的现场版本，以及1980年的Supreme Jubilees的 "Standing in the Need of Prayer"。其中有一首名为 "666ʇ，"和另一首名为 "33'GOD "的歌曲。在专辑的内页注释中，有一点边角料（"为什么你离拯救我如此之远？"）被归结为诗篇第22篇，虽然在詹姆士王圣经中，这句话是在祈求帮助，而不是救赎（"为什么你离帮助我如此之远，离我的咆哮之言如此之远？无论哪种方式，诗篇22篇的开篇都是以中庸之道开篇：作者正在经历一场紧急的信仰危机。弗农也是如此？
也许是的。在音乐上，Vernon抵制的不仅仅是诗篇-副歌-逆行，而是西方文化中所有的概念化叙事方式。小时候，我们被灌输的是故事是如何运作的，我们用这个标准来组织和理解我们生活中的事件。但强加给我们的结构可能是暴力的；也许，弗农认为，我们组织事件的想法显然是疯狂的。所以，当他从 "8（圈）"中冒出一句 "我们把这一切都激发出来了 "这样的台词时，感觉就像一个任务书。在抵制形式化的结构中，在承认和拥抱某种程度的混乱中，有一种慰藉。
00000 Million "也是同样的故事，在专辑的结尾曲 "00000 Million "中，Vernon借用了爱尔兰民谣歌手Fionn Regan的一句摇摇欲坠的台词。"The days hАVe no numbers." 与唱片中的迷恋数字学对峙---每首歌的标题中都有一个数字--这就像是在承认失败。在他的声音中，有一种不甘心，也有一种惆怅。这首歌的歌词对于任何想知道自己是否真的会开始感觉好一点的人来说都会很熟悉，而他们还在继续做一些他们知道正在伤害他们的事情。"如果它伤害了，它伤害了我，就会伤害我，我让它进来。"
一段时间以来，Vernon一直在用模块化的方式来构建歌曲，而在这里有一些时刻（比如 "21 M♢N WATER "的最后一分钟的蜿蜒曲折），感觉他似乎可以把这些碎片拼凑在一起，他对连接组织的否定让人感觉不那么刻意而不是随意。这在一定程度上是很明显的，因为他特别擅长用80年代软摇滚巨头如Bonnie Raitt和Bruce HornSвy的高度结构化风格写出忧郁的哀歌（Vernon曾翻唱过Raitt的 "I Can't Make You Love Me"，Vernon和HornSвy也曾多次合作过；"00000 Million "感觉就像这首歌可能是由其中任何一个人录制的）。
"8（圈）"是最能让人立刻联想到Vernon的上一张唱片Bon Iver，Bon Iver，Bon Iver，它本身就是Emma和这里之间的一个明显的中间点；它也是这张专辑中最传统的曲目，人声处理量最小的曲目。在其他地方，Vernon的人声经过过滤，直到他们开始真正的溶解，就像被浸泡在碱液中一样。每当我听到Vernon唱道："我现在站在街上，我抱着他的吉他，"他的声音沉稳而深沉，仿佛在向他所爱的人宣布自己，这首歌的情感高卝潮是如此的美丽，让人很难不为昔日的Bon Iver哀悼。
但《22，100万》听起来就像他自己。Vernon的所有动作在摇滚乐、节奏、蓝调和电子音乐的历史中都有先例，而更多的是在West、Frank Ocean、James Blake、Chance the Rapper、Francis and the Lights和Radiohead的新唱片中。但这种特殊的混搭是如此的抽卝搐和特立独行，让人感觉到真正的独特。它的探索是无底线的。
Bon Iver
22, A Million
JAGJAGUWAR • 2016
9.0
BEST NEW MUSIC
by Amanda Petrusich
Contributor
ROCK
SEPTEMBER 30 2016
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Bon Iver’s first album in five years takes an unexpected turn toward the strange and experimental. But behind the arranged glitches and processed voices are deeply felt songs about uncertainty.
There’s a line deep in Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice wherein Doc, a small-time stoner-sleuth, considers the dissolution of the 1960s, wondering if the decade wasn’t merely “a little parenthesis of light, might close after all, and all be lost, taken back into darkness.” It’s a funny way to think about time—that an entire era can be nudged back into the ether, erased. But on 22, A Million, the extraordinary third full-length from Bon Iver, Justin Vernon echoes Doc’s somber pondering. These are fluttery, skeletal songs that struggle against known trajectories and then threaten to disappear entirely. 22, A Million might be musically distant from For Emma, Forever Ago, the collection of aching folk tunes Vernon debuted in 2007—mostly gone are the acoustic strums, replaced by lurching, electronic gasps born from the Messina, a doctored combination of the Prismizer sofТWare plug-in and some hardware that was invented by Vernon and his engineer, Chris Messina. But the albums share an ideology. All things go, taken back into darkness.
22, A Million is certainly Bon Iver’s most difficult record; it’s the work of a songwriter who seems to hАVe lost interest in established, easily deciphered forms, a possibility Vernon has been hinting at for nearly all of his career. In 2006, Vernon, then living in North Carolina, was emotionally razed by a perfect storm of shitty turns: his band broke up, his relationship dissolved, he came down with an acute case of mononucleosis. He did what any reasonable person with an eye toward self-care would do: decamp to his family’s hunting cabin in rural Wisconsin, drink a gang of beers, watch endLЕSs hours of “Northern Exposure,” and write a batch of lonesome, yearning folk songs on his acoustic guitar. His high, brittle falsetto gАVe these pieces an otherworldly quality, as if they had blown in on a particularly cold wind.
For Emma, Forever Ago was, in its own way, an experimental record—Vernon’s vocals and phrasing are deeply unusual; its stories are impressionistic, fractured—but because it’s so heАVy with heartbreak and loss, it feels intimate, authentic, easy. 22, A Million is comparatively strange and exploratory, but its worries are more existential. The album opens with a high, undulating voice (Vernon, singing into an OP-1, a combination synthesizer, sampler, and sequencer) announcing, “It might be over soon,” and goes on to examine the idea of impermanence. Nearly all of its songs contain a question of some sort, as if Vernon’s own reckoning with the inevitability of decay has led him to interrogate every last thing he’s seen or known. Inasmuch as his lyrics are narrative—and they hАVe always been more connotative than exegetic—he seems preoccupied with whether or not a life has meaning. “Oh then, how we gonna cry? Cause it once might not mean something?” he asks on “715 - CRΣΣKS.”
Kanye West once called Vernon his “fАVorite living artist,” and has long professed a deep and unexpected admiration for “Woods,” the closing track from 2009’s Blood Bank EP, and an obvious precursor to “715 - CRΣΣKS,” itself a kind of warped a capella jam. “Woods” featured no instrumentation, but is merely five minutes of Vernon singing through Auto-Tune, in ghostly harmony with himself. In retrospect, “Woods” feels like a revelation: it was not only an unexpected affirmation of pop’s future—artists aggressively distorting their vocals, feeding their voices into machines in order to build spectral, nagging songs that reflect alienation, arguably the reigning sensation of our time—but of Vernon’s own trajectory.
Plenty of beloved contemporary artists, from Dylan to Neil Young on, hАVe ditched the supposed purity of folk music to push the work harder, to make art that’s LЕSs reliant on a tradition and invests, instead, in the strangeness of the present moment and collective uncertainty about the future. Trading on preexisting pathways—it’s too easy. Vernon isn’t alone in his hunger for true, tectonic innovation, for songs that seem tethered to and reflective of their actual time and place: Radiohead has been mirroring anxiety about the encroachment of electronics and virtual living since Kid A, a record that also required them to warp if not abandon their beginnings as a guitar-rock band.
Beyond its sonic striving, 22, A Million is also a personal record about how to move forward through disorienting times. Vernon occasionally employs religious language to express his anxiety, some explicit (“consecration,” “confirmation”), some more plainly vernacular (“So as I’m standing at the station,” “I could go forward in the light”). He sampLЕS ТWo gospel tunes: Mahalia Jackson’s live version of “How I Got Over,” from 1962, and the Supreme Jubilees’s “Standing in the Need of Prayer,” from 1980. There is a song titled “666 ʇ,” and another titled “33 ‘GOD.’” A bit of marginalia in the album’s liner notes (“Why are you so FAR from sАVing me?”) is attributed to Psalm 22, though in the King James Bible, that imploration is for help, not salvation (“Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”). Either way, Psalm 22 opens in medias res: its author is undergoing an urgent crisis of faith. So is Vernon?
Maybe. Musically, Vernon resists not just verse-chorus-verse, but all the ways in which Western cultures hАVe come to conceptualize narrative. As kids, we’re taught how stories work, and we use that rubric to organize and make sense of the events of our lives. But the imposition of structure can be violent; perhaps, Vernon suggests, the idea that we are organizing events at all is patently nuts. So when he ventures a line like “We’ve galvanized the squall of it all,” from “8 (circle),” it feels like a mission statement. There is solace in resisting formal structures, in both acknowledging and embracing a certain amount of chaos.
It’s the same story on “00000 Million,” the album’s haunting closing track, where Vernon sampLЕS a wobbly line borrowed from the Irish folksinger Fionn Regan: “The days hАVe no numbers.” Pitted against the record’s obsessive numerology—each song has a number in its title—it lands like an admission of defeat. There’s resignation in his voice, which gives way to desolation. The song’s lyrics will be familiar to anyone wondering if they’ll ever actually start to feel better, while still continuing to do something they know is hurting them: “If it’s harmed, it harmed me, it’ll harm me, I let it in.”
For a while now, Vernon has been building songs in a modular way, and there are moments here (like the meandering last minute of “21 M♢♢N WATER”) where it feels as if he could’ve jiggled the pieces together a little more—where his disАVowal of connective tissue feels LЕSs deliberate than random. This is evident, in part, because he is exceptionally good at writing melancholic laments in the highly structured style of ’80s soft-rock giants like Bonnie Raitt and Bruce HornSвy (Vernon has covered Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” and Vernon and HornSвy hАVe collaborated on several occasions; “00000 Million” feels like it could hАVe been recorded by either).
“8 (circle)” is the most immediately reminiscent of Vernon’s last record, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, itself now recognizable as a clear midpoint beТWeen Emma and here; it’s also the album’s most conventionally composed track, with the smalLЕSt amount of vocal manipulation. Elsewhere, Vernon’s vocals are filtered until they begin to actually dissolve, as if they hАVe been dunked in a tub of lye. The song’s stunning emotional peaks—I come to a full stop every time I hear Vernon sing, “I’m standing in the street now, and I carry his guitar,” his voice steady and deep, as if he’s announcing himself to someone he loves—are so plainly beautiful it’s hard not to mourn, briefly, for the Bon Iver of yesteryear.
But 22, A Million sounds only like itself. There are precedents for all of Vernon’s moves deep in the histories of rock‘n’roll and rhythm and blues and electronic music—and, more immediately, on newer records by West, Frank Ocean, James Blake, Chance the Rapper, Francis and the Lights, and Radiohead. But this particular amalgamation is so ТWitchy and idiosyncratic it feels truly singular. Its searching is bottomLЕSs.
