Thanks to a bad breakup and a nasty case of mono, Justin Vernon has become one of the most buzzed-about folkies in America. In the winter of '06, Vernon retreated to his father's hunting cabin in the northeastern Wisconsin wilderness to nurse his wounds. Subsisting on Leinenkugel beer and deer meat, and entertaining himself with a Vienna Boys Choir CD and Northern Exposure DVDs, Vernon wrote and recorded a set of nine harrowingly lovely songs. The resulting album, For Emma, Forever Ago — released under the name Bon Iver — is an icy moonscape of a record. Vernon, 27, layers vocal track over vocal track, harmonizing his eerie falsetto with itself along to chopped and spliced acoustic guitar. But it's less the voice of a guy wallowing in self-pity than someone trying his damnedest to move on from forever ago.

"This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization/It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away," he sings. And move on he has. Since his album came out in early 2007, Vernon has become a favorite of music supervisors (he's had three songs on Grey's Anatomy), Lilly Allen has blogged about him and he's performed with indie kids Lykke Li and Okkervil River. He's been invited to participate in a tribute to John Prine, a personal hero. Vernon's shows are warmhearted affairs — the audience is given lyric sheets and asked to accompany him. "I get cheesed out by sing-alongs but in these circumstances, they're singing a different part," he says. "It felt like it fills a gap."

Currently on tour through the end of the year, Vernon will swing through Australia before making his way back to Madison where he'll have one last blowout show at home. In January he'll release his four-song EP Blood Bank, and then "disappear" to work on a new record. "Nothing crazy," he says. "I'm not going to go back to the cabin. That would be ridiculous." BRIAN BRAIKER

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