This first blog is rightfully going to be devoted to the subject of something very dear to me: Bon Iver. This is of particular interest today because they have released the 'world's first' deluxe edition of the second album, the innovatively titled Bon Iver. I say 'world's first' as it is not (see Kanye West's Runaway full-length...). Bon Iver's deluxe consists of a set of beatuifully shot videos, designed to accompany the songs of their second album.
Being a die-hard fan of Bon Iver, I will generally not hear a word against them. A friend once bestowed unto them the name 'moany iver', which didn't sit right with me. Their first album, For Emma, For Ever Ago, is hard to dislike; with heartbreak seeping out each time Justin ventures into falsetto and from every perfectly formed crotchet. For me, Bon Iver had a lot to live up to; some big metaphorical shoes were being polished by its predecessor, but could they be filled?
And so, sitting in my Edinburgh kitchen one evening, I heard the first run through of Calgary on the radio. My first thought was 'christmas' - always a negative - it felt slow and user unfriendly. Being a 'user' myself, I was, dare I say it, disappointed. As with most things, however, if you water it with time, it grows. The album in full is still growing for me, and it has been a slow-grow. But with each listen, I follow a different line of the music, a different path put down by Justin & co., and I notice new spine-tingling things. Just now I heard Beth/ Rest for probably the 25th time and got goosebumps for the first.
So to the question of the day. Is the deluxe version worth anything? Justin claims that the videos were created to transport people on the subway/ underground/ metro to a place much less crowded & sweaty; in other words an Apple flavoured concoction for metropolitan i-people (redemonstrated by the fact that it can only be downloaded from itunes). I like the visuals, photography fan or not, it hard not to appreciate the i-mac mirroring effects. All digs aside, they used a nice camera and it looks good for it. However, how necessary is it really? To me it feels like 39.3 minutes of screensaver, and although I choose my screensavers because they look nice, I'm not going to sit and watch it for hours. That aside, the time-lapse flower growing in 'Towers', the bouncing/static effects in Hinnom, TX and the cool refresh of Holocene are bound to wake up any sleeping robot on their way to work.
Give the album a watch and see what you think.
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