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Matt Berninger of The National debuts music video for new track “One More Second”

Abhigyaan Bararia

Matt Berninger, popularly known in his role as the frontman for the critically acclaimed rock band The National, premiered the music video for his track “One More Second,” directed by Chris Sgroi, on YouTube Wednesday. The song is slotted to be a part of his debut solo record Serpentine Prison, scheduled to release Oct. 16. 

“I wrote ‘One More Second’ with Matt Sheehy (Lost Lander, EL VY) with the intention for it to be a kind of answer to Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You,’ or sort of the other side of that conversation,” Berninger said about the song. “I just wanted to write one of those classic, simple, desperate love songs that sound great in your car.”

The song begins with a soft, single-stringed acoustic riff but soon blooms and expands its sound, incorporating shuffling drums, organ sounds, rich backing vocals and eventually crescendoing with a piano solo. The video itself shows Berninger singing, dancing and just vibing in general to the song, interspersed with B-roll footage of the recording process of the track. 

Berninger debuted the title track four months ago, along with a music video directed by Chris Sgroi and Tom Berninger. Pitchfork, in its review of the song, said that Berninger is surrounded by ornamental instrumentation courtesy of producer and multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones, which allowed the gently-picked guitar and funereal horns to provide the background for Berninger’s “dark ruminations.”

“Sparse organ notes make the tale feel more immediate; it’s like hearing a longtime denizen of a backroom bar muttering to the strains of a country ballad on the jukebox,” Pitchfork wrote. 

Speaking of how Serpentine Prison came about, Berninger said that he sent a few rough demos of the material he had been working on to friend and collaborator Jones, receiving stout encouragement from the producer to keep working on the pieces. 

“Booker responded to those demos right away and encouraged me to keep writing and digging deeper into that stuff. Six months later we had twelve originals and seven covers,” Berninger said. “Everyone I had been working with on these songs came to Venice, CA, and we recorded it all in 14 days.”

Click here to pre-order Matt Berninger’s upcoming album, Serpentine Prison. 

Matt Berninger’s video for “One More Second” can be viewed below.

Abhigyaan Bararia
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Abhigyaan Bararia

Abhi Bararia is a contributing writer at Beyond The Stage Magazine. His taste in music spans far and wide, with some of his favorite artists including Glass Animals, Mac Miller, The Eagles, Cape Francis and Kendrick Lamar. If not writing and researching about the latest music, Abhi can be found on the hunt for the next sneaker to add to his ever-growing collection or finding new recipes to fuel his passion for cooking.