The National's fifth album, High Violet, was released on their new label 4AD on May 11th, 2010. It was the first to be recorded at the band's own studio in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn, with mixing by long time associate Peter Katis at his Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Pulses and impulses pull against each other creating a balance of tension. Let's call it musical tensegrity: engineered to stand up in unlikely ways, the album is a triumph of sonic architecture; adorned with unexpected, alchemical, and happenstance details,... more