I Am Easy To Find / The National
The National’s new album “I Am Easy To Find” features Brooklyn Youth Chorus on seven tracks.
On September 3rd, 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 Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process.
The result is 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 it 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 dramatically 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.
Reviews
Pitchfork
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-national-i-am-easy-to-find/
On nearly every song Berninger is accompanied and sometimes silenced by a rotation of featured female vocalists who step in to offer perspective, commentary, and dissent. The National have recruited some of the best singers out, among them Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle, Kate Stables, Sharon Van Etten, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
KCRW
https://www.kcrw.com/music/articles/the-nationals-i-am-easy-to-find-is-a-rewarding-and-dynamic-project
As per usual, the album is led by Matt Berninger’s trademark musings on, well, whatever it is that he muses on, paired with the colorful musical tapestry the Dessners and Devendorfs weave (in line with the sonic textures of 2017’s Sleep Well Beast). Theirs is a successful formula that fans and critics have gravitated toward for years. But, things are a bit different here; most noticeably the sweeping vocal additions of Gail Ann Dorsey (former Bowie bandmate), Lisa Hannigan, Kate Stables (This Is the Kit), Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and others. Filling in the space behind - and sometimes in lieu of - Matt’s rumble.
Naturally, there is startling beauty measured out across the album. “Where Is Her Head” is basically one long refrain, but it’s such an effortlessly, floatingly pretty one that it becomes one of the most addicting moments here. “Dust Swirls In Strange Light” has the Brooklyn Youth Chorus reciting a series of sensory memories — “The orange color inside her eyelids/ The sunlight on her skin/ Dust swirls in strange light/ The feeling of the rug on her body” — in an impressionistic track that captures the way small, unrooted images can linger as our most powerful recollections from our youth. “Hairpin Turns” plays like a graveled echo of something U2 might’ve written around All That You Can’t Leave Behind. (That is intended as a strong compliment.)