Bon Iver has dropped two new songs, ‘Walk Home’ and the Danielle Haim collaboration ‘If Only I Could Wait’.
Although the singles were released today, a preview of them both was streamed live yesterday (March 13) from In Such A Small Time Frame, the 24/7 trail camera feed and art installation that Justin Vernon quietly set up in the trees of Wisconsin in October. Ever since installing it, he has been using it to send messages to a devoted group of viewers.
‘Walk Home’ follows on from the story told within the previously released single ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love’, focusing on “sex and irrepressible desire”, as per a press release. “We don’t need no window curtains,” sings Justin Vernon. “We can let the light come in, we can shed your earthly burdens.”
Meanwhile, ‘If Only I Could Wait’ sees “two voices intertwine to illustrate the weariness that can follow the joyous flood of new love, when one may no longer have the strength to be the best version of themselves.”
Both songs will appear on Bon Iver’s fifth studio album ‘SABLE, fABLE’, which is due for release on April 11 via Jagjaguwar (pre-order/pre-save here).
“For the second look into fABLE, it couldn’t be a single; it had to be a double,” Vernon explained. “First, ‘Walk Home’ is a romp where you can’t wait to pull your clothes off fast enough and jump inside bed with your one true lover. And then – the two of singles – ‘If Only I Could Wait.’ A duet. A bilateral crying question. How long can the two of us hang on to each other?”
Check the new tracks out below:
‘SABLE, fABLE’ will mark Bon Iver’s first full-length record since 2019’s ‘i, i’, and follow last year’s ‘SABLE’ EP. The three songs featured on the latter collection – ‘Things Behind Things Behind Things’, ‘S P E Y S I D E’ and ‘Awards Season’ – will all appear as the opening three tracks.
Produced by Vernon and Jim-E Stack, ‘SABLE, fABLE’ was primarily recorded at Vernon’s April Base studio in Wisconsin. A press release notes that the “conceptual genesis” for the LP occurred in early February 2022, “when Stack arrived at the Base with Danielle Haim”.
It adds: “Snowed in for multiple days, Vernon and Haim’s voices intertwined on ‘If Only I Could Wait’, a duet with crucial perspective, about not having the strength to be the best version of yourself outside the glow of new love.”
The description continues: “Like fables, each track instils a lesson, and ‘…fABLE’ is about the selfless rhythm required when one is enmeshed with another person or lover – a patient commitment to finding the pace for betterness, and togetherness,” the description continues.
“Gone are the evasive and dense layers of sound that guarded Justin Vernon’s voice on ‘i, i’ and [2016’s] ’22, A Million’. The previous four albums were a cycle of seasons that is now complete; ‘SABLE, fABLE’ is a canvas for truth laid bare.”
In a four-star review of Bon Iver’s 2024 EP, NME wrote: “‘SABLE’ can serve as a reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel, and a reason to push through adversity – to move forward onto a new chapter.”