SABLE, fABLE arrives as two halves of one story. The first three tracks came out last year as a sparse EP dealing with depression and isolation. Now the full album adds nine more, and they sound completely different. Where SABLE, was skeletal and inward, fABLE is bright, detailed, layered pop about falling hard for someone. Justin Vernon recorded most of it at his Wisconsin studio after it sat unused during renovations. Jim-E Stack co-produced, and the sessions that kicked things off in February 2022 brought in Danielle Haim and strings from Rob Moose.
The new material is direct in a way Bon Iver hasn't been since the first record. No vocal processing labyrinths, no fractured song structures. Vernon is singing about desire, about seeing a future with one person, about whether he can stay in that light when the old darkness comes back. "There's A Rhythmn" asks if he can feel another way instead of defaulting to what's familiar. "If Only I Could Wait" has Haim's voice answering his, both of them too worn out to be their best selves outside this new thing they've found.
It works because Vernon doesn't pretend the hard stuff vanished. The SABLE, tracks are still here, still part of the same release. April Base in Eau Claire, Jim-E Stack and Ian Gold engineering, Heba Kadry mastering. For anyone who found the last two albums too dense or the early ones too spare, this splits the difference.
