22, A MILLION

2016 release. 22 stands for Justin Vernon. 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 the endless everything outside one s self that makes you who you are. The 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 quot;I m still standing in the need of prayerquot; 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. The poly-fi record formed at the congruence of a bold yet delicate sonic palette. These sounds were the way out from the suffocating enclosure and captivity of anxiety. The ten songs of 22 A Million are a collection of sacred moments love s torment and salvation contexts of intense memories signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard coincidence. If 2011 s Bon Iver Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces then 22 A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.