I think I might try to make a habit of posting music or some other kind of video every Sunday, partly to force myself to be a little more on the lookout for something new, partly to make sure I don’t let things get too intense here, and partly because there’s stuff like this I actually want to share.
Last week I went out and bought a real old-fashioned CD (my first in a long time: Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, from Grooves Records here in London. It’s pretty much my writing soundtrack now. It didn’t take many listens for all the tunes to get drilled into me, especially “Skinny Love”:
I just happened to see this on Letterman in December but didn’t catch the dude’s name. Then couple of weeks ago I noticed a lot of the people talking about My Morning Jacket on Twitter were also talking about Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon). I let it get away again, and then I stumbled on his Black Cab Sessions performance. Great vocal range — and not in an overly studied way either. He goes by soul, not by technique. Parts of the album even remind me a little of D’Angelo, with layer-upon-layer of vocal overdubs. D’Angelo + Neil Young… The falsetto is something Vernon started when he was young and kept cultivating out in the woods (so the story goes: check out this interview, which ends with him doing a Feist cover).
By the way, how can let this Wisconsonite be the most Canadian guy in music?…
