Track Listing

1. Flume
2. Lump Sum
3. Skinny Love
4. Wolves (Act I And II)
5. Blindsided
6. Creature Fear
7. Team
8. For Emma
9. Re:Stacks

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #286 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: CD

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's hard to believe that For Emma, Forever Ago is the work of one man. But when Justin Vernon's old band split he hauled himself (and presumably plenty of instruments and recording equipment) to his dad's hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin for the coldest season and worked through his issues in musical form. (The name comes from the French for "good winter"--"bon hiver"). By the start of the spring thaw he had recorded the bulk of this stunning debut, originally self-issued to acclaim last year in the USA and now picked up for a British release. Vernon's voice grabs the ear from the start, switching easily into a smooth falsetto (and unusually for a white indie lad, without the slightest intent of emulating Prince). The formula is straightforward. He layers his vocal harmonies, while a gently strummed acoustic rhythm guitar just about holds the centre. All else from horns to slide guitar is mere detail. The quality is rough and ready but the effect is strangely similar though to the slick vocal confections of European women like Bjork and Camille, all mystery and distance. It's the musical equivalent of reading someone else's diary. In code. Through a dirty window. Enigmatic songs like the elegantly stumbling "Creature Fear" with its rowdy horn parts, the resolute opener "Flume" and the evanescent "Team" are just so pretty they seem to glide by without leaving a mark in the snow. Vernon is apparently a straightforward and friendly guy, but For Emma, Forever Ago genuinely sounds like something from a far off place. --Steve Jelbert

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's hard to believe that For Emma, Forever Ago is the work of one man. But when Justin Vernon's old band split he hauled himself (and presumably plenty of instruments and recording equipment) to his dad's hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin for the coldest season and worked through his issues in musical form. (The name comes from the French for "good winter"--"bon hiver"). By the start of the spring thaw he had recorded the bulk of this stunning debut, originally self-issued to acclaim last year in the USA and now picked up by 4AD for a British release. Vernon's voice grabs the ear from the start, switching easily into a smooth falsetto (and unusually for a white indie lad, without the slightest intent of emulating Prince). The formula is straightforward. He layers his vocal harmonies, while a gently strummed acoustic rhythm guitar just about holds the centre. All else from horns to slide guitar is mere detail. The quality is rough and ready but the effect is strangely similar though to the slick vocal confections of European women like Bjork and Camille, all mystery and distance. It's the musical equivalent of reading someone else's diary. In code. Through a dirty window. Enigmatic songs like the elegantly stumbling "Creature Fear" with its rowdy horn parts, the resolute opener "Flume" and the evanescent "Team" are just so pretty they seem to glide by without leaving a mark in the snow. Vernon is apparently a straightforward and friendly guy, but For Emma, Forever Ago genuinely sounds like something from a far off place. --Steve Jelbert

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's hard to believe that For Emma, Forever Ago is the work of one man. But when Justin Vernon's old band split he hauled himself (and presumably plenty of instruments and recording equipment) to his dad's hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin for the coldest season and worked through his issues in musical form. (The name comes from the French for "good winter"--"bon hiver"). By the start of the spring thaw he had recorded the bulk of this stunning debut, originally self-issued to acclaim last year in the USA and now picked up for a British release. Vernon's voice grabs the ear from the start, switching easily into a smooth falsetto (and unusually for a white indie lad, without the slightest intent of emulating Prince). The formula is straightforward. He layers his vocal harmonies, while a gently strummed acoustic rhythm guitar just about holds the centre. All else from horns to slide guitar is mere detail. The quality is rough and ready but the effect is strangely similar though to the slick vocal confections of European women like Bjork and Camille, all mystery and distance. It's the musical equivalent of reading someone else's diary. In code. Through a dirty window. Enigmatic songs like the elegantly stumbling "Creature Fear" with its rowdy horn parts, the resolute opener "Flume" and the evanescent "Team" are just so pretty they seem to glide by without leaving a mark in the snow. Vernon is apparently a straightforward and friendly guy, but For Emma, Forever Ago genuinely sounds like something from a far off place. --Steve Jelbert

Customer Reviews

For Emma, Forever Ago
Like Dylan, Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver (it's a one-man show) understands that simple, acoustic-led arrangements married with lyrical depth can really pack a punch. Written during a self-imposed period of isolation in the Wisconsin woods after the break-up with his girlfriend and a serious illness, For Emma, Forever Ago is an achingly elegiac album and each track is an emotionally-charged vignette. Listen to Skinny Love for a sample of Vernon's musings on the loneliness of losing love or The Wolves (Act 1 and II) for a taste of accusatory hurt: `someday my pain will mark you. Harness your blame'. Despite its soul-baring, For Emma... is a surprisingly uplifting journey and a reminder of the beauty one man and his guitar can create.

Masterpiece.
In a similar vein to Damien Rice's debut album O, For Emma, Forever Ago is currently spending its gestation time simmering below the radar of popular consciousness before it surely soars into the affections of many. Like Damien Rice before him, Justin Vernon (who in this case goes by the alias, Bon Iver) has created a record of such delicate, intimate beauty that you are left amazed by how it could leave you quite so drained.

Although many reading this will already be aware of the context of this record and how it was made, it is integral to the listening experience and so worth mentioning again - although in truth, the music and melodies alone will be enough for some (perhaps more so given the lyrics are slightly hard to distinguish without the booklet). Following the break-up of his band and a relationship frustrated by an ongoing illness, Vernon 'hibernated' and ensconced himself in a cabin in the Wisconsin wilderness. His self-imposed isolation surfaced feelings of loss, guilt and longing carried over the years. With no real intention of recording, the three month exile ended up being musically inspiring and led to the recording of nine polished tracks - though polished doesn't seem like the correct word. The record's raw, organic constitution is thanks largely to the fact that Vernon was unprepared to record and used only basic equipment he had with him at the time. Each track offers little more than acoustic guitars, occasional electric guitar licks and an inventive use of vocal layering and haunting vocal reverb effects.

The album opens strongly with Flume and you are immediately aware that you are experiencing something of particular note. Instantly, the album's striking sense of poignancy seems to flood out of Vernon's falsettos and harmonies. The song's passing lyric "Sky is womb / And she's the moon" leaves you wondering long into the next track. Like nearly all of Vernon's poetry, the subject is always kept at arms length. Each song's meaning is left twisted and hidden from view, reflective of Vernon's lonely, tortured circumstance. Lump Sum picks up the pace with its 4/4 intro - its seductive chorus having you mimic the "Or so the story goes" refrain before you realise.

Picking up tiny lyric segments and being attached to them is a real feature of the album - again largely due to its low fidelity recording. Skinny Love is reminiscent of Lennon circa Dear Prudence as Vernon's anguish bears itself in a series of searing exclamations: "Who will love you? / Who will fight? / Who will fall far behind?" With its own sense of momentum each track seems to provide the perfect platform for the next. The rousing finale of The Wolves (Act I and II) and its repetition "What might have been lost / What might have been lost / What might have been lost" vignettes Blindsided's palpable sense of unexpected love and expected heartbreak, beautifully.

Although this album challenges more than it resolves, there are moments of hope and love. For Emma, perhaps the album's only song to be composed in a major key, describes a playful dispute between lovers and is a relieving tonic to the album's sometimes claustrophobic sense of solitude. It ends with the well-timed: "With all your lies / You're still very loveable." The song's stirring use of brass instruments acts to soothe after some of the album's darker moments. The album's farewell is another mesmeric highlight. Its simple verse and chorus cycle could happily turn over another ten times, weaving and meandering before the stacked staccato delivery of the song's chorus leaves an indelible impression on even the most thick-skinned listener.

Like many of the classic albums, albums that seem to pass through decades while hardly ageing, it is as if every moment ­- from the nagging, buzzing guitar string heard during Flume to the appearance of a vocoder during The Wolves (Act I and II) - no matter how incongruous it may seem, becomes ultimately fundamental to the album's success. For Emma, Forever Ago is the product of a time spent alone; a period of immense self-realisation, introspection and reflection. Justin Vernon's catharsis has benefited everyone. Among its cold chill are moments of genuine beauty and the message that we are all capable of confronting our fears and loss. This is the first musical masterpiece of the new century.

A quiet masterpiece
This is one of those albums that various people had recommended to me and that I bought without having heard a track. I'm glad to say, it was a successful purchase.

It's rare that an album can affect ones mood to this sort of degree - it happened to me a while back when I came across Midlake's Van Occupanther - but every time I listen to it I become subdued and melancholic but in a rather wonderfully serene way. There's a beautifully forlorn air to every song and, even when he seems on the verge of "rocking out" a sadness pervades. In fact, it's hard to isolate what makes this such a successful album: it's pretty bleak, and there is also a general absence of strong melodies and identifiable lyrics, but somehow the power of the songwriting and the conviction of his delivery carry it through.