Today, The National announced I Am Easy To Find due out May 17th along with opening track ‘You Had Your Soul With You’ featuring the vocals of long-time David Bowie collaborator Gail Ann Dorsey. I Am Easy To Findis the band’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY Award-winning release Sleep Well Beast. A companion short film with the same name will also be released with music by The National and inspired by the album.
The film was directed by Academy Award-nominated director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, Beginners), and starring Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander. Mills, along with the band, is credited as co-producer of the album, which was mostly recorded at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY, with additional sessions in Paris, Berlin, Cincinnati, Austin, Dublin, Brooklyn and more far-flung locations. The album also features vocal contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle and more. Tracklisting and tour dates below.
Having already announced “A Special Evening With The National,” five events happening this April in Paris, New York, London, Toronto and Los Angeles, the band has also announced a world tour beginning this June with Courtney Barnett and Alvvays opening select dates. See all tour dates below. Tickets on sale Friday 8th March at 10AM local time. For tickets and more information, visit www.americanmary.com.
More about I Am Easy To Find
On September 3, 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short order, the most ambitious project of the National’s nearly 20-year career was born and plans for a hard-earned vacation died. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century Women, and was interested in working with the band on…something. A video maybe. Berninger, already a fan of Mike’s films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process.
The result is a I Am Easy To Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy To Find, a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter, the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other.” – they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what is means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatic sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.
As the album’s opening track, ‘You Had Your Soul With You,’ unfurls, it’s so far, so National: a digitally manipulated guitar line, skittering drums, Berninger’s familiar baritone, mounting tension. Then around the 2.15 mark, the true nature of I Am Easy To Find announces itself: the racket subsides, strings swell, and the voice of long-time David Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey booms out – not as background vocals, not as a hook, but to take over the song. Elsewhere it’s Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, or Sharon Van Etten, or Mina Tindle or Kate Stables of This Is The Kit, or varying combinations of them. The Brooklyn Youth Choir, with whom Bryce Dessner had worked before. There are choral arrangements and strings on nearly every track, largely put together by Bryce in Paris – not a negation of the band’s dramatic tendencies, but a redistribution of them.
“Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn’t because, ‘Oh, let’s have more women’s voices,'” says Berninger. “It was more, ‘Let’s have more of a fabric of people’s identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn’t let that happen.”
I Am Easy To Find Tracklisting
1. You Had Your Soul With You
2. Quiet Light
3. Roman Holiday
4. Oblivions
5. The Pull Of You
6. Hey Rosey
7. I Am Easy To Find
8. Her Father In The Pool
9. Where Is Her Head
10. Not In Kansas
11. So Far So Fast
12. Dust Swirls In Strange Light
13. Hairpin Turns
14. Rylan
15. Underwater
16. Light Years
The National Tour Dates:
April 16 – PARIS, FR, Olympia
April 18 – LONDON, GB, Royal Festival Hall
April 22 – NEW YORK, NY, Beacon Theatre
April 24 – TORONTO, ON, Roy Thomson Hall
April 26 – LOS ANGELES, CA, Orpheum Theatre
June 11 – PHILADELPHIA, PA, Mann Center *
June 12 – BROOKLYN, NY, Prospect Park *
June 15 – MANCHESTER, TN, Bonnaroo
June 16 – ATLANTA, GA, Coca-Cola Roxy *
June 17 – ST. AUGUSTINE, FL, St. Augustine Amphitheatre *
June 19 – WASHINGTON, DC, The Anthem *
June 20 – PORTLAND, ME, Thompson’s Point *
June 21 – MONTREAL, QC, Place des Arts
June 22 – HAMILTON, ON, Pier 8 **
June 24 – COLUMBUS, OH, Express Live *
June 25 – ANN ARBOR, MI, Hill Auditorium *
June 26 – INDIANAPOLIS, IN, Lawn at White River *
June 28 – CHICAGO, IL, Northerly Island **
July 10 – MANCHESTER, GB, Castlefield Bowl
July 12 – MADRID, ES, Mad Cool Festival
July 13 – LONDON, GB, British Summer Time @ Hyde Park
July 15 – FRANKFURT, DE, Jahrhunderthalle
July 16 – HAMBURG, DE, Stadtpark
July 18 – RÄTTVIK, SE, Dalhalla
August 4 – WATERFORD, IE, All Together Now
August 6 – GLASGOW, GB, Summer Nights at the Bandstand
August 7 – GLASGOW, GB, Summer Nights at the Bandstand
August 9 – SICILY, IT, Ypsigrock
August 10 – BUDAPEST, HU, Sziget Festival
August 11 – BUFTEA, RO, Summer Well
August 14 – PAREDES DE COURA, PT, Paredes de Coura
August 16 – HASSELT, BE, Pukkelpop
August 16-18 – BIDDINGHUIZEN, NL, Lowlands
August 18 – HASSELT, BE, Pukkelpop
August 28 – VANCOUVER, BC, Deer Lake Park **
August 29 – SEATTLE, WA, Marymoor Park **
August 30 – PORTLAND, OR, Edgefield **
September 1 – STANFORD, CA, Frost Amphitheater **
September 2 – LOS ANGELES, CA, Greek Theatre **
September 3 – PHOENIX, AZ, Comerica Theatre **
September 5 – ODGEN, UT, Ogden Amphitheater **
September 8 – SANTA FE, NM, Santa Fe Opera House **
September 10 – AUSTIN, TX, 360 Amphitheatre **
September 11 – HOUSTON, TX, White Oak Music Hall **
November 25 – WARSAW, PL, Torwar Hall
November 26 – BERLIN, DE, Columbiahalle
November 27 – BERLIN, DE, Columbiahalle
November 29 – COPENHAGEN, DK, Royal Arena
December 1 – BOCHUM, DE, Ruhrcongress
December 2 – COLOGNE, DE, Palladium
December 3 – ZURICH, CH, Samsumg Hall
December 4 – MUNICH, DE, Zenith
December 5 – STUTTGART, DE, Porsche Arena
*w/ Courtney Barnett
**w/ Alvvays
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