The National curate and headline ATP Festival

After a report was leaked last week, rumours started circling that The National were set to curate the All Tomorrows Parties festival at Butlins, Minehead. Today ATP confirmed with a statement on their website. The National are set to headline the three day event with The Antlers, Owen Pallett, Sharon Van Etten, My Brightest Diamond and Megafaun just some of the artists set to join them. In total 40 live acts will play the three indoor stages. Only 5500 tickets are available with prices at £170.00pp for room only apartments and £180.00pp for self catered apartments, that go on sale this Friday 20 January at 2pm via www.Gigantic.com and this website.  The event will also feature DJs until late, Cinema chosen by The National and Book Club curated by The National.
For more information visit the website here.

Song of the day- Sharon Van Etten

The first I heard of Sharon Van Etten was when she collaborated with The National on their song, Think You Can Wait for the film Win, Win. That song has gone on to make the Oscars shortlist for Best Original Song. It was then released a while back that The National guitarist Aaron Dessner was set to produce Van Etten's album which got the blogosphere buzzing and we now know that the album is set to be released this Autumn. The lead single, Serpents, features just about everyone in the Brooklyn indie scene; Aaron and his twin brother Bryce, Zach Condon of Beirut, the Walkmen's Matt Barrick, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner and Thomas Bartlett of Doveman.

The National - Song of the week

What do Frightened Rabbit, Nico Muhly, Mercury Rev, Tokyo Police Club and The National all have in common? They are all appearing on The Philistines jr compilation album,  If a Lot of Bands Play in the Woods... The record is is full of covers and remixes of their 2010 album, If a Band Plays in the Woods...? Who are Philistines Jr you say and how did they get all these artists to appear on the album? Well Peter katis, the bands frontman, has produced various albums of the above mentioned- including the last 3 critically acclaimed albums by The National. The bands cover of the song, 'Twenty miles to NH, Part 2' has been getting some attention however I find it amazing that no one has mentioned how fresh and new this sounds for The National. The music is full of textures, progressing up until the throbbing, bombastic drums via Bryan Devendorf and then Matt Berninger opens his mouth and sings. All the uncertainty about whether this really was The National with the frilly, shiny guitar parts and piano is put to rest when Matt berninger sings that first line, "My cats fight and play all night it drives me crazy". Be prepared to listen to the greatest song ever about cats!

Cover vs Original: England

Now unless in case you hadn't realised, The National are my favourite band/artist. I recently completed a review on their 2010 album High Violet. It is on that album tat a particular favourite of mine, England is featured. Regarded by many the best song from High Violet the anthemic swelling until its climax is The National at their very best. With them in the middle of a tour it means that The National have become frequent guests at festivals throughout  Europe and America as well as other bands such as Mumford and Sons, the four-piece folk group from London. So when the group were featured on VH1's unplugged they decided to do a cover of England, having heard it many times during the past 2 years festival runs. What I want to know is which version do you prefer? The Cover or the original?
The National

Mumford and Sons

Jack ladder & The Dreamlanders-Song of the day

What can I say, I have a thing for baritones. If you know me at all you have probably realised my undying love for Matt Berninger of The National, but then there is also Guy garvey of Elbow and brad hargett of previous song of the day artists Crystal Stilts and then there is of course Nick Cave. So it would come as no surprise then (to you the reader or myself) that after recently iscovering Jack Ladder i cannot stop listening to him or his heartbreaking, low growl. His album, Hurtsville is, well depressing. However after a recent epiphany, i have come to realise that to be quite frank- I like to be sad and depressed. When i'm depressed it is usually after or while listening to 'depressing music' however these songs and albums and artists anre the ones that make me the happiest because I enjoy listening to them the most. So if you feel similarly to me or just need a good cry then here is Cold Feet.

The National - High Violet Album Review

Throughout your lifetime you find albums that stay with you forever. 'High Violet' is one of those albums. A gift that keeps giving, 'High Violet' gets better with time and each listen. Full of hidden treasures waiting to be discovered, The National's latest release, similar to their previous records, is full of vignettes about the daily lives of everyday folks layered with intelligent, metaphorical lyrics above driving beats, basslines and guitars. Every song is to some degree an epic, sounding like the most important song that they could make until it comes to it's climax, a crescendo of emotions and the next one starts. Each song also contains heart. I'm not sure what the heart is exactly. It could be the abrasive guitar riffs via the Dessner twins, Aaron and Bryce. Maybe the understated basslines from Scott Devendorf or the pounding drums provided by his brother, Bryan. Perhaps it's the rich, sultry baritone of Matt Berninger that makes you want to step into this album and never return to the boring duties of everyday life that are so perfectly soundtracked by The National.

Left-right (Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, Matt Berninger, Scott Devendorf and  Aaron Dessner)
From the very beginning The National proved they were worthy of comparisons to Leonard Cohen, the master of gloom and Alt rockers REM but never more so than the song, 'Sorrow'. "Sorrow found me when i was young, sorrow waited sorrow won." According to Matt Berninger, singer and lyricist, 'Sorrow' is about a persons own relationship with their sorrow- a relationship that should be celebrated. A subject that most artists would shy away from but is spread out through High Violet, an album that does celebrate the dark and the heavy because after all, these are the emotions that unite us all, everyone feels these things: sorrow, disappointment, fear and anxiety.

Becoming a father seems to have just heightened these emotions for Berninger, or rather his awareness of them. In 'Afraid of Everyone', over the eerie harmonies of fellow indie rocker Sufjan Stevens and the pensive harmonium of Padma Newsome, Berninger croons "with my kid on my shoulders i'll try not to hurt anybody I like, but I don't have the drugs to sort it out...i'm afraid of everyone."

Now 10 years since their formation, it seems impossible for the band to create a bad record. They've marked themselves out from the underground and blog-o-sphere where they dwelled for years. It was in 1991 when Matt Berninger met bassist Scott Devendorf at the University of Cincinatti where they were both studying graphic design. Together they moved to New York in search of work.
Bryan, Scott's brother, was friends with the Dessner twins and had already been in several bands with them when, in 1999 the trio joined Matt and Scott from their hometown of Cincinatti, Ohio and formed The National.

This connection with Ohio is alluded in the first single taken from the album, 'Bloodbuzz Ohio'. With bombastic drumming from Bryan Devendorf and swelling orchestration via The Clogs' aforementioned Padma Newsome, 'Bloodbuzz' is one of  the closest things The National have produced to a pop song however, even this song is a richly, brooding song that delves into the character's insecurities; isolation is the theme that drives the song forward. Like each member of The National, this character lives in a big city, it could be New York, it could be not, but while visiting friends and family in the town they grew up in- they realise that it doesn't feel like home anymore, but then neither does the city they live in. Troubled with money woes, "I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe" the character feels more alone and isolated than ever before, "I never thought about love when i thought about home" he sings in the chorus.

His need for escape is expressed in the sexy, sleek 'Lemonworld'. Full of melodrama and mystery he is stuck in a fabricated, fictional world with two sexy sisters who get drunk and wear bathing suits all day. Lemonworld's protagonist desparately tries to stay afloat in his middleclass, suburban life  eventually ending up in a tug-of-war between sanity and reality. 
Despite the ominous and darkness of their songs, The National still manage to add subtle hints of humour. Dark humour it may be,  but humour nonetheless. In 'Conversation 16' Matt Berninger tells his wife that "I was afraid i'd eat your brains, coz i'm evil", and that he has his, "head in the oven so you know where i'll be."

These fun and nonsensical lyrics can catch you off guard especially after listening to songs like the heart wrenching, 'Runaway' featuring the same fingerpicking patterns from Aaron and Bryce that were heard on Alligator and Boxer.

Similarly the epic 'England' full of huge illuminating horn arrangements and orchestration compliments the weary and tired sound of arguably The National's most recognisable quality, Matt Berninger's low, rumbling baritone as he dwells on the lover who is living overseas, "you must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain" he sings while he remains "in a Los Angeles cathedral" contemplating the simple geography that keeps them apart. Berninger has the amazing ability to sound deeply pained and contain emotional depth in his voice that many other frontmen can only wish of obtaining. The lover is left helpless and frustrated against the ocean that keeps them apart, heartbroken he sings, "someone send a runner through the weather that i'm under for the feeling that I lost today, someone send a runner for the feeling that I lost today."

It will come as no surprise then to anyone who has listened to past albums of The National's such as Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, angst filled Alligator or 2007's masterpiece Boxer that High Violet is not a light listen that is instantly embedded into the mind but rather a subtle and sincere record that over time gently begins to occupy a space in your heart. About a year since it's release and High Violet still proves to be relevant. I still regularly play this album from beginning to end and am blown away because this album and these songs changed my life and the way I think and feel about music. As I said at the beginning, given the chance, this album could stay with you forever!

5*
(Also see Top 10 albums of 2010)

Track List:

1. Terrible Love
2. Sorrow
3. Anyone's Ghost
4. Little Faith
5. Afraid of Everyone
6. Bloodbuzz Ohio
7. Lemonworld
8. Runaway
9. Conversation 16
10. England
11. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
Expanded Edition
- Terrible Love (Alternate Version)
- Wake Up Your Saints
- You Were A Kindness
- Walk Off
- Sin-Eaters
- Bloodbuzz Ohio (Live on The Current)
- Anyone's Ghost (Live at The Brooklyn Academy of Music)
- England (Live at The Brooklyn Academy of Music)

My dream come true

The National are joined by Win Butler of Arcade Fire on stage to perform Start A War from their 2007 release Boxer

Grinderman and Berninger

Ok i'm not stalking The National or any of its members i swear it's just unfortunate i decide to talk about them a lot on the same day but seriously this needs to be said- Grinderman remix of "Evil" featuring only my favourite singer, i mean come on you have to check this out- pure genious. I like how he doesn't just try to copy the same vocal style that Nick Cave usually adopts and is instead singing a little higher than we are accustomed to hearing from him.
http://bit.ly/ehob0H

The National- Song of the day

Today's song of the day comes a little late in the day, apologies. It is Bloodbuzz ohio by my favourite band and the video can be seen below showcasing Matt Berninger's incredible dance skills as well as his surprising yet amazing talent of posing like a Vogue model while feeding birds and running away from cyclists and that my friends is why he is the best frontman in the world- the multitasking he does!

Matt Berninger

Behold the owner of the sexiest voice on the planet of all time:

Cute pictures of Matt with his daughter

Ok so i found these and had to totally put them up ... So cute