Matt Berninger will release his debut album on October 2nd vía Book Records, a new label formed by Berninger and the producer of the album Booker T. Jones under Concord Records.

The first video single released for the album was the self titled track. Berninger had this to say about it: “For a long time, I had been writing songs for movies and musicals and other projects where I needed to get inside someone else’s head and convey another person’s feelings. I liked doing that, but I was ready to dig back into my own garbage and this was the first thing that came out.”

The video was directed by Tom Berninger, Matt’s brother and director of the great documentary about the National “Mistaken For Strangers”, and Chris Sgroi.

The 2nd video that was released was for ‘Distant Axis’, the video was co-directed by Matt Berninger alongside his brother Tom and Chris Sgroi.

About ‘Distant Axis’ Berninger said this: “I met Walter Martin, from the Walkmen, 15 years ago when the National opened for the Walkmen on a tour of shitty clubs in the American Southeast. On that tour, I learned a lot about how to be in a band without ruining your life. I also learned a lot about Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. Walt and I have stayed friends and about three years ago we started passing ideas back and forth. ‘Distant Axis’ started from a sketch Walt sent me named ‘Savannah.’ I think it’s about falling out of touch with someone or something you once thought would be there forever.”

The 3rd and most recent video released is for the song ‘One More Second’. The video was directed by Chris Sgroi and it finds Matt Berninger dancing all by himself. About the song he said this: “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. I just wanted to write one of those classic, simple, desperate love songs that sound great in your car.”

The tracklist for the album:

1. My Eyes Are T-Shirts
2. Distant Axis
3. One More Second
4. Loved So Little
5. Silver Springs
6. Oh Dearie
7. Take Me Out of Town
8. Collar Of Your Shirt
9. All For Nothing
10. Serpentine Prison

About the recording and release of his debut album Berninger shared with NME on an interview from December of 2019 that the record is “not the greatest solo album in the world, but it’s in the top five” before elaborating on its sound. “I wasn’t trying to do anything with a genre in mind,” he revealed. “With the covers, which you might never hear, I was singing some country songs, some soul songs and different things. I didn’t think about the style of the songs or even trying to avoid sounding like The National or [side-project] El Vy. There’s cross-pollination, but I wasn’t trying to go after anything. I just wanted to find some good songs. I just wanted to see if I could do something by myself, so I brought in 20 of the most brilliant musicians and some of the coolest people I know.”