The Depths · All albums

For Emma, Forever Ago

Bon Iver · 2007

• Scores: Noise 1, Unease 1, Complexity 1 (each 1 to 5)
• Genre: Folk, Indie Folk
• Mood: hushed, wintry, aching
• Sound: layered falsetto, acoustic guitar, lo-fi recording, sparse arrangements

Justin Vernon recorded this alone between November 2006 and January 2007 in a hunting cabin in northwestern Wisconsin, on a Power Mac G4 running Pro Tools LE. He layered his falsetto over itself to imitate a choir, often merging eight or more vocal tracks per song, and used Auto-Tune to manipulate the results. He wrote wordless melodies first and fitted words to them later. It was self-released on MySpace in June 2007 before Jagjaguwar issued it widely in 2008.

Track list

1. Flume (3:40)
2. Lump Sum (3:20)
3. Skinny Love (4:00)
4. The Wolves (Act I and II) (5:22)
5. Blindsided (5:30)
6. Creature Fear (3:06)
7. Team (1:56)
8. For Emma (3:40)
9. re: Stacks (6:40)