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Watch The National's New Video For 'Hairpin Turns', Directed By Mike Mills

Mike Mills directs the black-and-white video with a minimal, intimate austerity.
A still from The National's "Hairpin Turns" video.

In preparation of 's upcoming album, — due out May 17 on 4AD — the band has issued another single, titled "Hairpin Turns."Like every National single, it. "What is it you want me to be learning? We're always arguing about the same things," sighs Matt Berninger, contrite and tired. A looping electric guitar riff cycles through, a non-verbal signifier of the ceaseless back-and-forth. Then, a line so specific that it elevates "Hairpin Turns" into a great National single: "Days of brutalism and hairpin turns," a vivid descriptor that feels all too cutting. "The video is a very simple portrait of the band (and the friends who helped make the song) and the song itself: You see all the instruments that make up the song in isolation, even hear them recorded live on set over the album version, kind of like showing you the tracks that make up the song," writes Mills in a press release.

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