DeYarmond Edison – Epoch 5LP + 4CD Box Jagjaguwar Records

In the summer of 2005, four friends left Wisconsin for North Carolina with a singular goal: to outrun their folk-rock doldrums. During a year of intense focus, study, and vulnerability, they did exactly that, reaching toward the ecstatic edge of New Weird America by trying out a little of everything-grindcore and gospel, free jazz and phase pieces, bluegrass and blues-and packing it into DeYarmond Edison. Maybe you know the rest? One member went home to begin what would become Bon Iver, while three stayed put to start Megafaun. Epoch is the story of DeYarmond Edison: Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Justin Vernon and Joe Westerlund, told as never before. The collection comprises five LPs, four CDs, dozens of unheard recordings and unseen photos. It’s accompanied by an extensive biography from writer and cohort Grayson Haver Currin, who also serves as executive producer to the collection. All told, Epoch captures the time before these four friends became two revelatory other bands (Bon Iver, Megafaun). It’s a tale of community, vision, family, and a quartet that wanted to be too good to last. There are moments of experimentation, subtle twists in the fuzz of “Epoch” and stomping approach to covering “All Tomorrow’s Parties” that lay the groundwork for how both Bon Ver and Megafaun would turn acoustic music somewhat inside out. But much of Epoch underlines the group’s unique lens for American Songwriting, for taking it’s patchworks, finding the chords, and singing your heart out. “Trials, Troubles and Tribulations” is one example. Best known as a buried treasure duet from Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten, it comes back to life here in sprawling, Last Waltz style, with vocals from Megafaun, Justin Vernon, Frazy Ford and Fight the Big Bull. Each disc is a crash course in everything that built that specific body of music: photos from backyards and basements; essays detailing specific recordings; color palettes evoking time and place. At over seven hours and 55,000 words, Epoch is a maximalist collection. But you don’t have to be completist to connect with what it means to hunker down with your best friends and make things, and dream for those things, and learn and struggle and grow.