Stream: Bon Iver, ‘Faith’ and ‘Jelmore’

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Bon Iver (Photo by Graham Tolbert and Crystal Qinn)

“This project began with a single person,” Justin Vernon says, “but throughout the last 11 years, the identity of Bon Iver has bloomed and can only be defined by the faces in the ever growing family we are.”

With that, Vernon announced that the fourth Bon Iver album “i,i” would be out Aug. 30 via Jagjaguwar. It’s being described as the record that completes a seasonal cycle that began, seemingly, forever ago with “For Emma, Forever Ago.” That was the album cycle’s “winter,” in 2007. “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” followed in 2011, and “22, A Million” in 2016. The new album sees Bon Iver going into its metaphorical autumn.

Started at the remote Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas (near El Paso) and completed on Vernon’s home turf at April Base in Wisconsin, the album “feels very much like [Bon Iver’s] most adult record, the most complete,” Vernon says. “It feels like when you get through all this life, when the sun starts to set, and what happens is you start gaining perspective. And then you can put that perspective into more honest, generous work.”

Vernon worked with a cast including Bon Iver veterans Sean Carey, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Mike Lewis and Matt McCaughan, along with Rob Moose and Jenn Wasner. Also making appearances on the album are James Blake, Brad and Phil Cook, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Bruce Hornsby, Channy Leaneagh, Naeem, Velvet Negroni, Marta Salogni, Francis Starlite, Moses Sumney, TU Dance and more.

||| Stream: “Faith,” “Jelmore” and “Hey Ma”

||| Live: Bon Iver plays the Forum on Sept. 15. Tickets.