Opis
22, A Million is an album built on contrasts. On Bon Iver’s third album, released in 2016, Justin Vernon grapples with pain and love, suffering and redemption, signs and coincidence. That ambiguity lies at the heart of his songwriting: there are always two ways of looking at the same thing.
Beneath its fragmented language of symbols and numbers lies a sonic distillation of years of turbulence and the gradual path toward recovery. Across ten songs, 22, A Million completely overturned expectations of what a Bon Iver album could sound like.
Working through different circles of friends — close, fleeting, new and old — Vernon began piecing together proto-melodies, hazy textures and distinct moods from hundreds of hours of recorded improvisations. Songs such as “22 (OVER S∞∞N),” “33 ‘GOD’,” “715 – CRΣΣKS” and “8 (circle)” abandoned familiar structures in favour of fractured electronics, pitch-shifted vocals and dense layers of sound.
What initially felt like a radical departure has since become one of the most influential and enduring works in the Bon Iver catalogue.
In 2026, 22, A Million celebrates its tenth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Bon Iver and Jagjaguwar are reissuing the album in two limited-edition formats: a special 12-panel CD edition featuring the “Inverted Cross” design, and a limited Frosted Silver vinyl pressing with new alternate artwork housed in a soft-touch gatefold sleeve with spot-UV gloss details.
The vinyl edition reimagines the original album artwork and includes the original 28-page lyric booklet, now printed in three different silver inks, as well as a new 12-page full-colour insert documenting the making of 22, A Million. The booklet explores the world surrounding the album’s symbol-rich visual language through previously unseen artwork and a personal essay by visual artist Eric Timothy Carlson.
The collaboration between Bon Iver and Eric Timothy Carlson began with 22, A Million and has since become a central creative relationship at the heart of the project, encompassing artwork and creative direction for subsequent albums including i,i, SABLE, and fABLE, as well as exhibitions, photography and broader visual identities.
In 22, A Million (10th Anniversary Edition), Carlson offers an in-depth interpretation of both the album artwork and the symbolic titles of its individual songs, revealing the stories and meanings behind the iconography in greater detail than ever before.
