“re: stacks” by Bon Iver

"re: stacks" belongs to For Emma, Forever Ago, the Bon Iver debut that Justin Vernon first put out himself in July 2007 before Jagjaguwar gave it a wide release in February 2008. The credits tell the whole story: Vernon wrote it, sang it, played it and recorded it, alone.

That solitude was the point of the record. Sick with mononucleosis and a liver infection, and fed up with his songs and his life in Raleigh, North Carolina, he retreated to his father's remote hunting cabin in Wisconsin, an hour northwest of Eau Claire, and recorded there through late 2006 and early 2007. For the album he threw out his old way of writing, shaping melodies without words first and fitting lyrics to them afterwards, chasing something closer to the subconscious. He never meant to make an album at all; friends talked him into releasing it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.