Monday 31 March 2008

HEADS UP

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Y'all should check out Bon Iver.

I dunno much about him, but Pitchfork said good things about his debut For Emma, Forever Ago, so I thought I'd give it a go, and it really is fantastic.

I'm not sure how you'd categorise it: scrappy folk, alt-folk, alt-country, folked-up alt-shit? It sounds a bit like the best bits of the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou only without the smug ethnographical worthiness. Apparently it was recorded alone in a remote cabin in Wisconsin, which I suppose would account for the cracked, valetudinarian rawness of the songwriting. Shades of Elliot Smith and Bonnie Prince Billy, but more primitive and lacerating than either; the kind of record that works best listened-to in the midst of a really bad hangover or similar moment of mordant fragility. Mr Iver has a direct, powerfully emotive melodic range, and his music is about as far away from the spurious fakery of worldly scenesterism as it's possible to get. A big thumbs-up from me.

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