Bon Iver has announced a new EP called ‘SABLE’ – listen to the single ‘S P E Y S I D E’ below.
- READ MORE: Bon Iver – ‘i, i’ review
The Justin Vernon-led project seemingly began teasing new material earlier this month with a black-and-white video clip. Now, a delicate and acoustic track has arrived that sees the musician return to his folk roots.
‘S P E Y S I D E’ was co-produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack, and features vocals and guitar by the former, along with viola by Rob Moose.
“I know now that I can’t make good/ How I wish I could/ Go back and put/ Me where you stood/ Nothing’s really something now the whole thing’s soot,” Vernon sings in the first verse.
The song serves as the second chapter of Bon Iver’s upcoming three-track EP ‘SABLE’, which is due for release on October 18 via Jagjaguwar. It’ll also contain the cuts ‘Things Behind Things Behind Things’ and ‘Awards Season’.
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The collection was written so that Vernon could “unpack the darkness, pressure and anxiety that amounted to one of the most trying periods of his life”, the singer-songwriter explained in a statement.
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He explores feelings of “guilt, anguish and turmoil” across the EP, whose title refers to colours so dark they are almost black.
‘S P E Y S I D E’ is accompanied by a black-and-white official music video, directed by Erinn Springer. The moody visuals find Vernon taking shelter alone in a barn as a storm rages outside. Additionally, we see him standing in the ocean under dark clouds.
Bon Iver’s fourth and latest studio record, ‘i, i’, was released in 2019. In a five-star review of the project, NME said that we find “contradictory instrumental lines gorgeously meshing together, turning the older sounds into something fresh and new”.
It added: “But it also feels bittersweet. With ‘i, i’ marking the end of the album cycle, the possibility of any future Bon Iver music is uncertain.”
Bon Iver has since collaborated with Taylor Swift on her 2020 sister albums, ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’, and performed ‘Exile’ with the pop star during his show 2022 show in London. He also featured on The National’s 2022 single ‘Weird Goodbyes’, and contributed to Zach Bryan‘s 2023 song ‘Boys Of Faith’.