Boxer · Issue №1
The National · Beggars Banquet · 2007 · BBQLP 252
Issue №1
I had no idea I lived a 10 minute drive from where one of my favorite albums of the last 20 years was being made.
Tarquin Studios is a 7,000-square-foot Victorian house in Bridgeport, Connecticut, barely 6 miles up the road from my house in Fairfield. Peter Katis bought it in 1998 and converted it into a destination for indie bands; his mix on Interpol’s Turn On the Bright Lights in 2002 was the credit that brought them in. He’s produced every album for The National since Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers in 2003. The band went there in summer 2006 to make Boxer.
The album opens with Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) at the piano. A descending figure in 2 voices, the top moving in 4s and the bottom in 3s. That’s a 4-over-3 polyrhythm and Bryce Dessner wrote the song around it. He told NPR’s Rhythm Section the pattern was something he had never heard in rock music. Bryan Devendorf’s kick enters on the threes. At 1:40 he rolls a tom fill and the song shifts.
That polyrhythm is now a signature sound for The National. Devendorf is the band’s only drummer, and his playing carries that off-kilter pull throughout the catalog, but on “Fake Empire” it’s right at the surface. The closest precedent in pop is Manny Elias’s drumming on Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Same 12/8 time. Same trick of a hi-hat cutting against the triplets underneath. You hear it before you know what you’re hearing.
Bartlett had written about The National before they brought him in to play keys. He has said the piano part on “Fake Empire” was the first thing he ever recorded with them. He stayed on across the catalog, often without headline credit.
Boxer is The National’s fourth record. May 22, 2007, on Beggars Banquet. Paste named it the year’s best album.
The album almost didn’t get finished.
The chain
One mastering chain feeds every CD, digital and US vinyl edition. The UK and EU vinyl runs through a different cutting room. The story of how the record got finished is more eventful than the chain implies.
Session. Tarquin Studios, Bridgeport CT · Summer 2006 to Spring 2007
Producer. Peter Katis
Postproduction.
By September 2006 the band had run through its recording budget at Tarquin and had less than half an album. Katis kicked them out to finish elsewhere.
The Dessner brothers spent fall and winter 2006 re-recording most of it in Aaron’s attic on Stratford Road in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, two houses down from Bryce’s own attic studio that had been used on Alligator.
Sufjan Stevens, a Ditmas Park neighbor and Bryce’s closest friend, came over for a day during the attic sessions and played “Ada” and “Racing Like a Pro.” Earlier that summer at a barbecue, he had told Aaron: “I think it’s probably gonna be really good, because you guys are really struggling.”
The “Fake Empire” trumpet outro, later used in the 2008 Obama campaign, was tracked in Aaron’s attic.
Mixing. Six weeks back at Tarquin, January and February 2007
Master. Fred Kevorkian · Kevorkian Mastering, NYC. The same master feeds every CD, digital and US vinyl edition since.
Release. May 22, 2007 · Beggars Banquet
Cover. Photo by Abbey Drucker, at the time the girlfriend of Interpol’s Paul Banks. Taken at Peter Katis’s wedding reception in Westport, Connecticut, on May 28, 2005. The band on stage was playing “Daughters of the Soho Riots” from the previous album. A joke that became the cover.
“It’s called Boxer. Like, ‘Fuck you,’ you know? We love our label, but at the time, they were kind of underwhelmed. I think on some level they thought we would be the next Interpol or something.”
— Bryce Dessner, AV Club oral history
The musicianship
Padma Newsome’s chamber-instrument orchestration is what makes Boxer sound different from the National records that came before it. Strings, woodwinds, brass at densities the band had not previously run. Matt Berninger sang the whole album in his lower register; Alligator‘s screaming became the recognized voice and he refused to repeat it.
Personnel.
Matt Berninger · lead vocals
Aaron Dessner · guitar, piano, keyboards, percussion
Bryce Dessner · guitar, piano
Scott Devendorf · bass, backing vocals
Bryan Devendorf · drums, percussion
Additional musicians. Padma Newsome (viola, violin, organ, orchestration) · Thomas Bartlett / Doveman (piano on “Fake Empire,” keyboards and accordion across the record) · Sufjan Stevens (piano on “Ada” and “Racing Like a Pro”) · Marla Hansen (vocals) · Ha-Yang Kim (cello) · Sara Phillips (clarinet) · Alex Sopp (flute) · CJ Camerieri (trumpet) · Tim Albright (trombone) · Rachael Elliott (bassoon) · Jeb Wallace (French horn) · Carin Besser (vocals on “Apartment Story”) · Pauline de Lassus / Mina Tindle (vocals)
The verdict
The John Dent / Optimal Media vinyl is the reference cut.
If your format is not vinyl, the Sonopress European CD is the reference for CD listeners, and the lossless 16/44.1 download is the reference for music-server listeners.
We’re new here. If it was worth your time, send it to one person who'd want it.
The dynamic range gap
The DR pattern tells the story. Across The National’s catalog, vinyl pressings sit between DR9 and DR13. CDs sit at DR5 to DR9. Boxer measures vinyl DR11, CD DR5. A 6-point gap. In digital-loudness terms, that’s a gulf.
That’s why Dent’s vinyl gets the call. The recording sounds the way it should, and vinyl is the only format that delivers it for Boxer.
A note on acquisition.
If you’re buying for sound, the Dent vinyl is the pick at any of its three pressing years. If you’re buying for collectibility, the 2007 first pressing and the 2021 gold variant carry the secondary-market premium. Know which game you’re playing.
Endnote
The first sound on Boxer is Thomas Bartlett at the piano. Newsome’s arrangements. Devendorf’s tom roll at 1:40. The polyrhythm Bryce Dessner had not heard in rock music before he wrote it.
The album opened doors. Vincent Moon’s documentary A Skin, A Night chronicled the sessions and released in 2008. The Obama campaign used “Fake Empire” that same year, first in a promotional video, then at the Democratic National Convention, then at Grant Park on election night. Letterman called the band in July 2007. Craig Ferguson in September. Matt’s brother Tom Berninger took the title of the album’s first single for his own 2013 documentary about following Matt on tour. High Violet followed in 2010 and became the band’s first Top 10 album in the US, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard 200.
John Dent’s 2007 cut is still pressing in 2026. Dent passed away in December 2017; his Boxer cut carries a lasting legacy. The recording survived its own production. Some records do.
Reference Checks is an evidence-led publication on the recording versions worth a serious listener's time. A paid tier launches later with the full chain-of-custody dossier (every catalog string, matrix runout, plant identifier and verification specification) plus a more narrative-forward reading of each issue. The reviewer's listening chain is calibration context, named in the About page and absent from every verdict.