It’s a measure of the warp-speed nature of the Hype Machine-era music industry that a box-fresh artist such as Bon Iver can receive a hagiographical write-up in The Guardian before most music journalists, let alone record buyers, have had a chance to hear his album. In this case, though, the breathless praise is justified.
Bon Iver is not his real name. The Wisconsin-based folkie was born Justin Vernon, but chose the pseudonym as a bitterly ironic play on the French “bon hiver”, meaning “good winter.” Like another recent Track Of The Day act, Fleet Foxes, Vernon’s music comes freighted with a sense of nature-as-solace. Current album For Emma, Forever Ago was composed during a lonely winter sojourn in a remote hunting cabin, following the break-up of both his band and his relationship. Very much not a good winter, then.
Bloggers will no doubt draw comparisons with the hypnotic, pastoral alt-folk of Iron And Wine, but Vernon is also channelling an older, bleaker strain of acoustic woe that recalls Nick Drake and (at least in terms of those slo-mo, yawning-bear vocals) John Martyn. Here he is singing the saddest song on an unbearably sad album, Blindsided.
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It’s a measure of the warp-speed nature of the Hype Machine-era music industry that a box-fresh artist such as Bon Iver can receive a hagiographical write-up in 
