The National Tease New Album With Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers & Sufjan Stevens
The National are teasing their next project, and it’s shaping up to be a high-profile one.
On Friday (Jan. 13), the group uploaded a video of lead singer Matt Berninger in a sepia-toned clip sitting at a piano bench and reading a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a sparse, piano instrumental softly plays in the background.
The short video clip also included a link to a password-protected page on their website, americanmary.com/lp9. Fans were quick find out how to access the page (spoiler alert: “EVIL FOREBODINGS” unlocks the mysterious link).
When opened, the page features a video with the same piano melody, which later follows into a more drum-heavy instrumental, soundtracking a green novel with its first two pages exposed. The book starts off with a letter addressed “To Mrs. Bridgers, England” — as in Phoebe Bridgers — and has two other notable mentions throughout the text: “Taylor” Swift and “Uncle Sufjan” Stevens.
Naturally, fans were ecstatic to learn The National would be working with Swift, Bridgers and Stevens on a new project. “TAYLOR PHOEBE SUFJAN AND THE NATIONAL ON THE SAME ALBUM WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS,” one fan wrote on the band’s Instagram post, while another fan speculated that keywords in the letter reveal “a tracklist for the new album: Poolside, Alcott, Ice Machines, Your Mind is Not Your Friend, Alien, Tropic Morning News, Eucalyptus, This Isn’t Helping, and Grease in Your Hair!”
The National released their most recent album, I Am Easy to Find, in 2019. In the following years, bandmembers Bryan Devendorf, Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner teamed up with Swift on 2020’s folklore and evermore albums, introducing the band to Swift’s wide-reaching fanbase.
See The National’s teaser post below.
Starr Bowenbank
Billboard
