As most Canadians know, "bon hiver" is a French expression that roughly (and not entirely accurately in the colloquial sense) translates as "good winter."

Justin Vernon's singer/songwriter alter ego Bon Iver was born while he was having a not particularly good winter -- albeit one that, in hindsight, kinda turned into a good winter -- at his father's hunting cabin deep in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin. Kicked out of his old band, freshly broken up with a girlfriend, recovering from a serious liver infection and mired in depression, Vernon fled to the remote location for three months from November of 2006 until January of 2007, hunting for sustenance and relying on his dad for weekly beer deliveries. Eventually, however, he tired of drinking alone and watching TV all day and decided to channel his energies in more productive directions, finding release in multi-tracking layered acoustic guitars and falsetto chorales into the pained, lo-fi folk songs that would become For Emma, Forever Ago for up to 14 hours a day.

So, yes, Vernon probably went quite batty for awhile. But he came out of it with a collection of battered, rustic tunes so striking that his friends begged him to put it out and, after an initial self-release and a bit of a subsequent record-label feeding frenzy, Jagjaguwar Records got it out to the world at large in October of 2007 and Bon Iver became a legit band and not just some sad weirdo in a shack. Something about For Emma, Forever Ago still strikes a chord with the masses because we at Kop's have to restock it all the time. And, given the circumstances of its creation, that's pretty cool. Living well is the best revenge, as they say.

TRACKLISTING:

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

Just a, Forever Ago [JAGJAGUWAR]