One of the best albums of 2009 hasn't been officially released! It's of course Dark Night of the Soul, a collaboration of Danger Mouse with Sparklehorse (or Mark Linkous). Their cd was supposed to accompany a limited edition book featuring photographs by David Lynch. Unfortunately, because of a copyright dispute between Danger Mouse and his label, the book was released with a blank CD-R. The album quickly leaked to the web and proved to be a great collection of songs featuring guest appearances from Iggy Pop, the Flaming Lips, James Mercer of the Shins, Black Francis of the Pixies, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, Nina Persson of the Cardigans, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Vic Chesnutt, Suzanne Vega and David Lynch himself. My perception is that Mark Linkous's style is more obvious than that of Danger Mouse, so I thought that a relevant upload would be appropriate. Another remark is that each song could easily fit to a release of the singer (or the group of the singer) who sings it.
Here are the introduction notes that Danger Mouse wrote for the book:
"Back in 2004, I was at SXSW, walking down the street with a group of people. Some musicians, a producer or two, and a few I didn't know. We were talking about music, bands we liked, bands we didn't like, and we stopped in a couple of different bars to check out the music. When one of the musicians asked me what I’d been listening to (a question I usually draw an instant blank on), I remember being able to answer pretty quickly. Sparklehorse was my current favorite. As I was going on and on about the "Static King" (Mark Linkous), one of the members of the group finally spoke up and said she managed Sparklehorse. I told her to pass along my love, and she helped me sneak into a Raveonettes show.
One year later I returned to SXSW to play people the new Gorillaz album I'd helped with. I got a surprise phone call. It was Mark Linkous. His manager has sent him the Grey Album, and he was calling to tell me how much he liked it. I asked him what he was up to, and he said he was trying to finish his next album but was in a rut. By the end of the conversation, I'd somehow been invited to North Carolina to see if I could help in some way.
Soon after that, I found myself driving my father's old van from Atlanta into the mountains of southern
North Carolina. Once there, I stayed with Mark, his wife, and his dog Smokey. Every day, we drove the hour-long trek down the mountain to his studio in a little one-stoplight town. He'd already been working on his album for over three years, and most of what he played was
working, things clicked.
As we got more comfortable, Mark played me "Revolution," an idea he'd had in his head that he had yet to record. Right away, we started messing with it. As we worked on it, it grew up into a pretty special piece of music. But Mark didn’t want to sing the song himself. I thought he could pull it off, but he decided not to even attempt it. After a few more visits, the album was finished, but “Revolution” remained incomplete. I asked him if he ever had other ideas that he never attempted because of not wanting to sing them simply, "Sure."
Later, Mark came out to work with me in Los Angeles. We didn't really have a set goal – we just wanted to make a bunch of music together and see what happened. I played him some ideas I had, and he played me some more of his. I could tell he was a bit more comfortable now that he didn't have to sing. Each day, we’d record music and then go to a movie, or watch one at my house. It was a routine we repeated many times over the next year. During that time, we created the music for what would eventually become Dark Night of the Soul.
As we recorded the music, we assembled a wish-list of singers: people we knew in some way, people we thought would sound great over certain songs. We started making phone calls and sending out the music. Over the next year, we recorded with our friends all over the U.S., and one in the U.K.
We worked with Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, James Mercer of the Shins, Iggy Pop, Black Francis, Vic Chesnutt, Suzanne Vega, Nina Persson of the Cardigans, and Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals (who helped turn "Revolution" into the song "Just War"). Mark eventually gave in and sang a song, too.
The album was taking shape. As we finished the songs with the various artists, we started to notice some interesting patterns. We'd never given specific direction to any of the singers involved, nor had we played them any of the other songs on the album. Yet, there seemed to be common themes in the lyrics and feel of the songs. There was pain, revenge, war, twisted dreams, and other beautifully haunting visual aspects to it all.
While taking a break from mixing the last Gnarls Barkley album, I watched David Lynch's film Inland Empire. I was already a fan of Lynch's other work, and I knew Mark was, too. I thought he would be perfect to give a visual representation to this album. I'd considered a visual dimension while recording, but never anything too specific. I didn't revisit the idea until I'd finished watching the film. I got together the latest mixes of all the songs on the album and wrote a letter to Mr. Lynch. In the first draft, I begged and begged him to do it and threatened to scrap the whole visual thing if he didn't agree" to do it. Then I thought better; I just asked him to listen to it and let me know if he had time to talk about an idea I had about it. A few days later, he wrote back.
I went to visit David. He was enthusiastic about the project. He even wanted to sing on the album. After we talked, I realized he'd sung some of the amazing songs on the Inland Empire soundtrack. (Check out "Ghost of Love.") Initially, I was there to discuss the visual element - he said that he'd give that some thought, too. Not long afterward, we met again. He said he'd listened to the music quite a bit and had come up with some visual ideas, and that he wanted to shoot them as stills. I called Mark to let him know about it, and at first he didn't believe me. Obviously, we were both pretty excited about it.
We gave David some instrumental ideas. He sat with them and eventually came up with some songs. It was ideal. Aside from Mark and me, he was the only musician who had listened to the entire album. His contributions turned out to be "Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It)" and the final song, "Dark Night of the Soul."
David Lynch's visuals of Dark Night of the Soul are presented here to accompany the album."
review link: here
download link: here (mirrorcreator) and here (rapidshare)
