I’ve been living with songs from Bon Iver’s SABLE, fABLE since last October and have already gone on record naming it as my favorite album of 2025 (so far). My deeper reflections on the project began back in August during the chordinnation’s virtual album club. But last night, I got to discuss the album with neighbors right in my city of Columbus, Ohio.
The Album Club began as a curiosity. What would it look like to bring people together like you would a book club and, instead of studying a novel, discuss one album in its entirety?
There’s a Ross Gay quote I love that I can’t stop thinking about where he says, “Noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive.”
Much of my creative work, especially over the past few years, has been rooted in this idea that writing about my beloveds might invite you to consider yours. It might inspire you to look beyond yourself and recognize how your life is attached to someone else’s.
I’ve returned to music in many of my essays as a vehicle for helping me find language to explore my own emotions but also as a tool to consider the commonalities between us. There’s a hope in the formation of these bonds that maybe we can deepen our capacity for care. Maybe we can forego the harmful individualism that we’re so often pushed toward and instead draw closer to each other.
I witnessed that hope come to fruition as familiar faces and new friends gathered at The Scatter Joy Project’s brick-and-mortar shop on North High Street to discuss SABLE, fABLE — and more importantly, to be together.
As noted by one of our attendees, Thomas Costello, who also happens to be an incredible writer (and wrote about The Album Club ahead of our first meeting), “The album talk itself fosters conversation and relationship but the non-album talk was equally valuable, maybe more.”
But not dismissing the album talk, I loved the discussions throughout the meeting and gained some new perspectives on a project I’ve already gathered so much about. Split up into smaller groups, people shared their feelings on a range of topics, including the music itself, the cover art, and the musical and emotional trajectories of Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon.
One of the takeaways I loved was when Matthew shared how the album art reminded them of a window. They noted how Vernon started writing songs for SABLE, fABLE during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The artwork is, in some ways, reminiscent of the opening Vernon might have looked out of while writing alone from his cabin in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which resembles how he made Bon Iver’s debut album over 18 years ago.
I thought about how the cover art for the SABLE, EP and subsequent album are inverses of each other. They create a yin-yang effect where the primary colors, salmon and black, aren’t separate from each other but live within one another. While it’s easy to look at the two discs of the album — the SABLE and fABLE — as separate entities, or even to look at Vernon’s newer music as a departure from his earlier work, one informs the other, and they’re never fully apart.
The vibrance and shadows coexist. Especially at a time when loneliness is more prevalent than ever despite people being more connected than they’ve ever been, and when we’re faced with new horrors every day, the heaviness of it all can feel inescapable. And of course, these troubles require our time and attention. We must face the mess and not run from it. But for those of us who can, we must also peek our heads out every once in a while and remember that it’s not all darkness.
In my research, I learned that the music video for “AWARDS SEASON,” which is the last song on SABLE before transitioning to fABLE, ends with Vernon exiting the cabin where the videos for the rest of SABLE are filmed. He leaves behind the suffocating darkness and sets his eyes on the sun. What once felt impossible to reach is now his reality, even if just for a moment.
The Album Club isn’t some kind of utopia where all the world’s troubles go away; it’s us choosing to meet each other in the world, amid all the troubles, and bask in the light of each other’s company and openness. We cling to that warmth even as the days get darker and months grow colder. We remember that the lonesome of our own cabins isn’t all there is. Yes, there are shadows. But there’s salmon, too. And maybe, just maybe, new worlds lie within.
I’m so grateful for everyone who joined our first Album Club meeting and can’t wait to come back together to discuss another album on Monday, December 1 at 7:30pm. I’ll share more details in the coming weeks!
For updates on future Album Club meetings, follow my Instagram and The Scatter Joy Project!