Bon Iver Goes Back To ’22, A Million’

Bon Iver is marking a decade of 22, A Million with a new anniversary edition that expands the album’s visual world rather than simply revisiting its music. It’s due Nov. 20 from Jagjaguwar, commemorating 10 years since Justin Vernon and company dramatically altered their sonic and visual vocabulary.

The new edition will be available as a limited edition custom 12-panel “inverted cross” CD and a limited edition LP pressed on frosted silver vinyl. The reimagined vinyl package features alternative artwork on a soft-touch gatefold with spot-UV gloss detailing, plus the original 28-page lyric booklet, now rendered in three silver inks, alongside a new 12-page, full-color booklet documenting the making of 22, A Million.

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Also featured is an essay from Eric Timothy Carlson, the visual artist whose collaboration with Vernon began with 22, A Million and subsequently extended across Bon Iver’s i,i and SABLE, fABLE, as well as exhibitions, photography and other visual work. Carlson’s essay offers a deeper look at the elaborate symbolic language surrounding 22, A Million, including the meanings behind the album’s unusual song titles and iconography. Previously unseen artwork accompanies his account of how the visual identity developed alongside the music.

“The songs were born as numbers, initially an unsettled numerology that calcified over time as the songs came into their own,” he reveals. “The idea was to find an icon to hold each track. The Western Arabic numerals were to remain intact yet asked to be realized as unique forms, ligatures, glyphs and monograms.”

The relationship between sound and image was central to 22, A Million from the beginning. SPIN’s original review recognized the album as a dramatic departure from the folk-rooted sound that had defined Bon Iver’s earlier work, highlighting Vernon’s increasingly fragmented vocals, electronic textures and experimental production. “22, A Million pushes forward as only an artist could,” writer Jeremy Gordon opined. “It’s a weirder record, foregrounded with decayed, pulsating electronics, warped vocals and instruments invented by Vernon and his friends. Paranoia and claustrophobia shade the sound, but it’s still territorially and emotionally expansive — a night-time detour through unknown and welcoming land.”

Vernon took a long break from the road following the conclusion of Bon Iver’s 2023 tour and last year re-emerged with the album SABLE, fABLE. He also reunited Bon Iver, sort of, as Bon Dylan for an all-Bob Dylan covers set at his revived Eaux Claires festival in his Wisconsin hometown.

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