A Cabin in the Woods

photo courtesy of www.recordstore.co.uk

I downloaded a few Bon Iver songs from Daytrotter this morning. I've been hearing all of this buzz about them so I figured I'd see what all the fuss is about. Plus, didn't one of the band members go to LU?

Anyway, so far the music is pretty good. Melancholic, autumnal, honest. Makes me think of a gray day in New England or something. (Since, you know, I've been to New England...) The instrumentation is simple - the piano, acoustic guitar, bass and emotional (though somewhat hard to understand) vocals never compete with each other, but seem as harmonious as shades of a sunset.

There is something so raw and elemental about the music. It constantly quivers between man and nature; between the lonely songwriter trying to make sense of life and the vast and timeless quality of an environment that is somehow comforting in its impartiality.

I didn't read the Daytrotter article until this point, because I wanted to have an unbiased reaction. After reading it, though, it suddenly strikes me how sad the music is. It is the music of loss, of an emptiness that ironically fills the singer up until the music is choked out of him. It is music that is can only be truly sung on the floor, and yet, the album, "For Emma, Forever Ago," is a tangible result of his grieving process and a symbol of his recovery. Though the music is absolutely heartbreaking, an underlying whisper that says that life will go on keeps the music from being hopeless. The singer bleeds, he falls apart, but he is never falls so far that he is irretrievably lost.

The tracks I downloaded were:
"Flume"
"Lump Sum"
"Re Stacks"
"Creature Fear"

Here is a link to the Daytrotter article and song downloads. It is free to download, and perfectly legal since Daytrotter records all of the sessions that they post.