Three Previously Unreleased Recordings Illustrate DeYarmond Edison’s Indispensable Impact, From Birthing Bon Iver & Megafaun To Inspiring Decades of Collaboration
A historic new box set called Epoch will reveal the untold, unabashed and unabridged story of DeYarmond Edison: the short-lived but life-changing band formed by childhood friends Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Justin Vernon and Joe Westerlund, whose 2006 implosion birthed Bon Iver, Megafaun and some of the most venerated music careers of their generation. Across 5 LPs, 4 CDs and a definitive, 11-chapter biography by journalist and executive producer Grayson Haver Currin, the collection charts the group’s complex evolution and complete rise and fall, from the formative songs they recorded as high school kids in turn-of-the-century Wisconsin, to the dismal year of experimentation and reinvention in their adopted home of Raleigh, NC. Through its 83 unearthed recordings, Epoch also unpacks the period that came after the band’s sudden dissolution – solo work, sporadic reunions, and so many special collaborations – as the ideas that DeYarmond Edison developed are essential to understanding two decades of indispensable music that has come in the band’s wake.
Epoch Box Set Out Friday, August 18th on Jagjaguwar, Telling The 5-LP, 4-CD, 114-Page Story of Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Justin Vernon & Joe Westerlund’s Short-Lived But Life-Changing Band:
Ahead of Friday’s release, three songs from Epoch’s fifth, final and post-breakup LP, Where We Belong, are available on digital platforms for the first time today. A live performance of Megafaun’s Alan Lomax-inspired take on “Trials, Troubles, Tribulations” was recorded alongside Justin Vernon, Frazey Ford + Fight The Big Bull at the Sydney Opera House on 6/1/13, and it comes backed with Ticonderoga’s “Hands Up” featuring Justin Vernon, and DeYarmond Edison’s “Set Me Free,” an Allman-sized electric blues jam that closes out the entire box set.
Recorded between Spring 2004-April 2014 in Raleigh, Durham, Eau Claire, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia, the nine tracks on Where We Belong are “the sound of violently pulling apart the threads that bound you to someone else for decades,” writes Grayson Haver Currin. “And then methodically, over the course of many years, putting them back together in a fashion that somewhat resembles that past.” Within days of DeYarmond Edison calling it quits, Brad Cook, Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund started Megafaun, and Where We Belong’s “Lazy Suicide” documents their first rehearsal. Within weeks, Justin Vernon was returning home to Eau Claire and beginning to shape Bon Iver. Shortly after recording For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon returned to North Carolina in early 2007, where he cut “Hands Up” as part of an unreleased, six-song EP with his Raleigh heroes Ticonderoga, featuring Mark Paulson and Phil Moore of Bowerbirds. Though Justin Vernon and Megafaun would eventually welcome each other on stage on cross-country tours together, and the Sounds of the South event where they performed “Trials, Troubles, Tribulations” in Sydney, DeYarmond Edison reunions have been partial and private. The last time the four members were billed as the band was SXSW in 2011, where they played all covers and one original they never managed to record in the studio, “Set Me Free.”
The version of “Set Me Free” that ends Epoch dates back to 2004, caught live just days before DeYarmond Edison released their debut album. It captures the purity and spirit of the band’s friendship, and throughout Epoch a universal tale of small-town transcendence, coming of age and collective ambition emerges. Filled with early and embarrassing, tense and triumphant, vulnerable and vital moments, the box set is a testament to the magic that can happen when no one’s looking.
Each of Epoch’s LPs and CDs encapsulates a specific era of DeYarmond Edison, with the band dynamics reflected in a unique language of geometric shapes, symbols and color combinations showcased in the box set’s artwork and visuals. While the box ends with Where We Belong, it begins with All of Us Free, excavating the work of a high school-aged, funk-rock-reggae-jazz group called Mount Vernon, as well as turning points like “As Long As I Can Go” and more that a primitive DeYarmond Edison tracked in the nude at a local Presbyterian church. DeYarmond Edison’s second studio album, Silent Signs, has been remastered and pressed to vinyl for the first time, and Justin Vernon’s solo effort hazeltons foreshadows “Holocene” and other, future Bon Iver breakthroughs with songs such as “hazelton.” That Was Then – the four-CD component of Epoch – recovers live performances from DeYarmond Edison’s transformative residency at North Carolina’s Bickett Gallery, and an unforgettable 2006 show at Wisconsin’s Mabel Tainter theater. Title track “Epoch” and the other brilliant songs that make up Epoch, etc. find DeYarmond Edison at their very best and most promising, right before breaking up at the height of their collective power.
Epoch Tracklist
LP1 – All of Us Free
Mount Vernon – We Can Look Up
Mount Vernon – Morning
Phil Cook & Justin Vernon – Feel the Light
Justin Vernon – Breathe
DeYarmond Edison – The Lake
DeYarmond Edison – Dusty Road, So Kind
DeYarmond Edison – As Long as I Can Go
Justin Vernon – Right Down There in Your Tributary
DeYarmond Edison – The Orient
LP2 – Silent Signs
DeYarmond Edison – Lift
DeYarmond Edison – Silent Signs
DeYarmond Edison – Heroin(e)
DeYarmond Edison – Love Long Gone
DeYarmond Edison – First Impression
DeYarmond Edison – Bones
DeYarmond Edison – Heart for Hire
DeYarmond Edison – Dead Anchor
DeYarmond Edison – Ragstock
DeYarmond Edison – We
DeYarmond Edison – Dash
DeYarmond Edison – Time to Know
LP3 – Epoch, etc.
DeYarmond Edison – Song for a Lover (of Long Ago)
DeYarmond Edison – Epoch
DeYarmond Edison – Baby Done Got Your Number
DeYarmond Edison – Brief Scene
DeYarmond Edison – Where We Belong
DeYarmond Edison – Red Shoes
DeYarmond Edison – Heroin(e)
LP4 – hazeltons
Justin Vernon – hazelton
Justin Vernon – frail sail
Justin Vernon – game night
Justin Vernon – easy
Justin Vernon – liner
Justin Vernon – song for a lover (of long ago)
Justin Vernon – hannah, my ophelia
LP5 – Where We Belong
Justin Vernon – Look Down That Long, Lonesome Road
Justin Vernon – Handwriting on the Wall
Ticonderoga (feat. Justin Vernon) – Hands Up
Justin Vernon – Funeral Lights
Megafaun – Lazy Suicide (Edit)
Megafaun (feat. Justin Vernon) – Carolina Days
Megafaun (feat. Justin Vernon, Frazey Ford + Fight the Big Bull) – Trials, Troubles, Tribulations (Live from the Sydney Opera House, June 1, 2013)
Megafaun + Bon Iver – Worried Mind
DeYarmond Edison – Set Me Free
CD1 – That Was Then – North Carolina – The Bickett Gallery Residency
DeYarmond Edison – What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?
DeYarmond Edison – Step It Up and Go
DeYarmond Edison – Phil’s Instrumental
DeYarmond Edison – Louis Collins
DeYarmond Edison – Old Dollar Mamie
DeYarmond Edison – Two Scenes
DeYarmond Edison – Sea Legs
DeYarmond Edison – Abel + Cain
DeYarmond Edison – Half Life
DeYarmond Edison – Afro Blue
CD2 – That Was Then – North Carolina – The Bickett Gallery Residency
DeYarmond Edison – Four Keyboard Phase in A
DeYarmond Edison – Cybernetic Meadow
DeYarmond Edison – Paul’s Park
DeYarmond Edison – Justin’s Phase Piece
DeYarmond Edison – Exercise in Abandonment
DeYarmond Edison – Bones
DeYarmond Edison – I Live The Life I Love (I Love The Life I Live)
DeYarmond Edison – My Beautiful Reward
DeYarmond Edison – A Satisfied Mind
DeYarmond Edison – Come and Go With Me (to That Land)
CD3 – That Was Then – Wisconsin – The Mabel Tainter Concert
DeYarmond Edison – Intro
DeYarmond Edison – I Been Drinking
DeYarmond Edison – Down on the Banks of the Ohio
DeYarmond Edison – Silent Signs
DeYarmond Edison – Please Find Me Here
DeYarmond Edison – Abel + Cain
DeYarmond Edison – We
DeYarmond Edison – Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
DeYarmond Edison – Afro Blue
CD4 – That Was Then – Wisconsin – The Mabel Tainter Concert
DeYarmond Edison – Intro
DeYarmond Edison – The Longest Train
DeYarmond Edison – No Depression in Heaven
DeYarmond Edison – Red Shoes
DeYarmond Edison – Song for a Lover (of Long Ago)
DeYarmond Edison – Ain’t No More Cane
DeYarmond Edison – easy
DeYarmond Edison – All Tomorrow’s Parties
DeYarmond Edison – A Satisfied Mind
DeYarmond Edison – Come and Go With Me (to That Land)
