Bon Iver announce ‘22, A Million’ album, share two tracks

Bon Iver have announced details of their new album, ’22, A Million’.

Out 30th September via Jagjaguwar, the new album arrives five years after 2011’s ‘Bon Iver, Bon Iver’. Two tracks are available to hear now - the serene ’22 (OVER S∞∞N) [Bob Moose Extended Cab Version]’ and the fizzing, uptight ’10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⊠ ⊠ (Extended Version).’

’22, A Million’ comes with some of the most bizarre song titles since Aphex Twin first accidentally lent on his desktop keyboard. ‘666 ʇ’,’33 “GOD”’, ’21 M♢♢N WATER’ and people’s favourite ‘8 (circle)’ all feature. Justin Vernon’s been getting into numerology, it would seem.

There’s a very lengthy explanation for all of this from Vernon’s former bandmate Trevor Hagen, who’s also a musicologist. He explains the album title by saying “22 stands for Justin,” adding: “The number’s recurrence in his life has become a meaningful pattern through encounter and recognition. A mile marker, a jersey number, a bill total. The reflection of ‘2’ is his identity bound up in duality: the relationship he has with himself and the relationship he has with the rest of the world. A Million is the rest of that world: the millions of people who we will never know, the infinite and endless, everything outside one’s self that makes you who you are. This other side of Justin’s duality is the thing that completes him and what he searches for. ’22, A Million’ is thus part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. When Justin sings, “I’m still standing in the need of prayer” he begs the question of what’s worth worshipping, or rather, what is possible to worship. If music is a sacred form of discovering, knowing and being, then Bon Iver’s albums are totems to that faith.” Alright mate.

Anyway the new songs are very, very good; both very different impressions of what to expect from the album. Listen below the insane tracklist. Pre-order the album here.

01 22 (OVER S∞∞N)
02 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⊠ ⊠
03 715 - CRΣΣKS
04 33 “GOD”
05 29 #Strafford APTS
06 666 ʇ
07 21 M♢♢N WATER
08 8 (circle)
09 ____45_____
10 00000 Million