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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The musician Justin Vernon, who goes by Bonnever,

occupies a unique place in pop music. On his own records he's a singer-songwriter often in a very

spare idiom but he's probably better known as a collaborator with some of the biggest

stars in pop music notably Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Bonnever is releasing his first new music in five years,

starting with the song Space Side, and he came to the studio the other day to talk with our

music critic Amanda Petrosich.

I know now that I can't make good

how I wish I could.

Bonnever is the alias of Justin Vernon, a singer and songwriter from Oak Claire, Wisconsin.

He's about to release a three-song EP called Sable,

the Bonnever, which, by the way, is a French phrase, meaning good winter,

lifted from the television series Northern Exposure,

a deeply formative work in Vernon's creative universe.

His music is so important to me, but I actually find it incredibly difficult to characterize

in part because none of it really sounds the same.

He's done the very bare-boned acoustic thing,

like on Skinny Love.

He's experimented with distorting digital effects

like on 715 creeks.

But it all kind of feels the same.

...