High Violet was a wonderful album, not to mention one of the best of 2010, but if you’re (always) in the mood for new music from Matt Berninger and the Dessner/Devendorf brothers, help is on the way: The National have written two new original tunes, one for the video game Portal 2 and another as a theme song to the Paul Giamatti-starring film Win Win, which was mentioned among a preview of music-related Sundance films earlier in the year.
While we wait for the Sharon Van Etten-featuring Win Win song, “Think You Can Wait,” which was inspired by the film’s tale of “very normal and good people trying to do their best and the struggle to be good,” as Berninger told HitFix, you can now hear a nice little instrumental portion of their composition on the Thomas McCarthy-directed flick’s official site. Soak that preview in, then prepare for another promising cut…
Per a press release last week for the second installment of the video game Portal, they’ve recorded a new song, “Still Alive,” for the franchise. “The National’s raw and emotive music evokes the same visceral reactions from its listeners that Portal does from its players,” said Bug Music’s Julia Betley. “It was exciting and a privilege to bring together two exceedingly talented creative teams to create something special…”
Plenty is on the way, but until it reaches our ears in full, enjoy the new John Slattery and Kristen Schaal-starring music video for “Conversation 16” below:
“Conversation 16”