Bon Iver’s Cryptic 22, A Million Artwork, Explained

Brooklyn-based artist Eric Timothy Carlson is responsible for the design of the album packaging, murals, newspapers, lyric videos, and other materials surrounding Bon Iver’s latest album, 22, A Million. In a new interview with Emmet Byrne of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Carlson breaks down the process of collaborating with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on the artwork at the same time that Vernon was recording the new album.

In the interview, Carlson describes how he would be holed up in the studio doing sketches while recording sessions were going on. Each of the (oddly named) songs on 22, A Million were assigned a different symbol (as seen here), and according to Carlson, the song titles were informed by the runes. “The songs were all numbers from the start, multiple numbers at first,” he told Byrne. “So we would listen to each song, talk about the numbers, talk about the song, watch the lyrics take form, makes lists, make drawings. Real references and experiences are collaged in both the music and the artwork.”

Find the full interview, as well as original lyric sheets, sketches, and full scans of the 22, A Million artworks, here.

Carlson also discussed the moment he realized what exactly he was developing:

Between the numerology, the metaphysical/humanist nature of the questions in 22, a Million, and the accumulation of physical material and symbolism around the music—it became apparent that the final artwork was to be something of a tome. A book of lore. Jung’s Red Book. A lost religion. The Rosetta Stone. Sagan’s Golden Record. Something to invest some serious time and mind in.

On people that feel the visual look of 22, A Million is too different from past Bon Iver albums:

And as far as the feeling of the previous Bon albums, I mean, they brought me in for a reason. That version of Americana was ripe and appropriate when For Emma, Forever Ago and Bon Iver happened, but the Bon project didn’t want to further perpetuate that aesthetic. The new album remains explicitly connected to those before it, but the feeling has undeniably evolved, as has the culture around it.

Carlson also spoke about the series of lyric videos Bon Iver has been rolling out, which he worked on:

The lyric videos initiative came from Justin. I’m not sure they ended up looking like what he was imagining, but that’s one of the things that has been so great about the project: the trust in the work of everyone involved. I was originally a little hesitant about the lyric video concept, largely due to the quality of lyric videos in general, and because I was dreaming of an entirely abstract/ambient visual component to live with the music online, without typography. But many lyric videos found online are made by fans—iMovie/After Effects motion graphics class projects. I feel that that amateur aesthetic has gone on to inform what official, professionally produced lyric videos look like.

And finally, on everyday symbols and the importance of the Green Bay Packers:

These simple things—jerseys, beer cans, rainbows—function in a similar way to the symbols. They too are symbols. The beer can is there, suggesting traces of the people behind the project. Everybody drinks the same Coca-Cola Classic. Chipotle has the same burrito any place you eat it. The football jersey—I mean, nothing ever got done at the studio on Sunday afternoons because the Packers were on, and I was like, ‘Noted.’ It’s real.

Watch Bon Iver’s lyric video for “666 ʇ”: