Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
Unreleased
(2009)

It all began with a viral marketing ploy at this year’s SXSW, with posters in downtown Austin featuring the likes of David Lynch, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse under a project titled “Dark Night of the Soul.” Details remained elusive until a press release from NPR unveiled that the project is a collaboration once intended to be a limited edition release of photography by filmmaker David Lynch and music written and produced by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. A strange collaboration, but the premise is as well-executed as it is promising. Unfortunately, due to legal troubles with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to officially release the record. Aggravated as fans of the music are, those involved will instead package Lynch’s book of photography with a blank CD-R (a pointed address to a litigious industry that has grossly conflated the role of lawyers and bureaucrats in its circle).

The track list contains an impressive lineup of guest spots. The Flaming Lips perform a travel-weary song called “Revenge” which has the band toning down its characteristic wackiness in favor of darker, moodier fare that’s in line with the tone of Lynch’s photography. Like the many of the other songs following it, “Revenge” has Danger Mouse experimenting with the ’60s psychedelic palettes that he accomplished to mixed effect in Beck’s Modern Guilt. In “Jaykub,” Jason Lytle of the now-disbanded Grandaddy preps his solo debut with a folk-twinged pop song that combines rural melodies and electronic sounds. The song is much more freewheeling than the Flaming Lips track, although given their vocal similarities, it’d be easy to confound the two. Julian Casablancas of the long-absent Strokes makes a strong showing in “Little Girl,” a song which owes much of its success to the sensibilities of the producers. As apparent from other tracks, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse are adept at adapting the styles of their guest vocalists, producing sounds familiar to them while retaining the record’s overcast quality. “Little Girl” features a catchy bassline, simple garage rock structure and sun-baked melody, leading one to think how promising it would be to impart Danger Mouse with production responsibiliteis on a Strokes record).

Frank Black of The Pixies sounds especially irate in the harsh, industrial grunge of “Angel’s Harp,” which is followed by Iggy Pop in the aptly titled “Pain” that has the Stooges frontman vampirically crooning, in oblique reference to his veteran music career, about the particular wounds, physical or emotional, inflicted upon him (the man is 62 and still looks like he could more than hold his own in a circle pit). In a surprising gesture, David Lynch features on two songs that don’t quite sound like I’d expect from the man who gave us Eraserhead. “Star Eyes” is a pleasant piece of organ- and glockenspiel-based space rock. Violins, synths and distorted vocals coalesce into what sounds like an aural spectacle of stars, comets and other heavenly bodies. Title track “Dark Night of the Soul” is much more recognizably Lynch, which brings to mind the unsettling noir feel of Mulholland Drive. A record crackles in the background, simple piano chords carry the beat, muffled lyrics leave a ghostly aspect and creeping found sounds take the listener through dreamy twists and turns. It’s like listening to a long-lost record discovered in some post-apocalyptic haunted saloon, an elegant composition that takes you out of time and space.

As of yet, Dark Night of the Soul lacks definite plans for an official release, but until EMI gets its lawyers to work out a quick solution, your best bet is to stream the entire album at NPR.

***
For more details on the book of photography and updates on the record’s release, visit http://www.dnots.com/

via Abe Ahn, 17 May 2009 8:24pm | 1 |