Earlier this month, Bon Iver teased… something. On social media, Justin Vernon shared a black-and-white video featuring a clapperboard doing its thing before revealing Vernon, facing the camera with the brim of his cowboy hat obscuring his eyes. It also linked to his website and included a pre-save link for something without a revealed title.
Well, now we know more about what’s going on: Today (September 17), Bon Iver has announced “SPEYSIDE” (stylized as “S P E Y S I D E”), a new song. The track is set to drop this Friday, September 20, and here’s just about all we know about it at the moment: Aside from Vernon singing and playing guitar, the tune features regular collaborator Rob Moose on viola, with production from Vernon and Jim-E Stack.
There’s currently no word on if this means a new Bon Iver album is on the way. If there is, it would be the first since 2019’s i,i, although Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner teamed up to release the Big Red Machine album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? in 2021. Vernon has also delivered a regular stream of collaborations over the past few years, most notably including multiple songs from Taylor Swift’s albums Folklore and Evermore. Most recently, towards the end of 2023, he joined Zach Bryan on “Boys Of Faith.”