The Dark Night of the Soul: an album people die for. Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse died in March 2010. Vic Chessnutt died on Christmas day 2009. They both appear on this album created by Danger Mouse together with Mark Linkous and which contains a little booklet of photos made by, oh gross, David Lynch, whom I tend to admire from a distance.
Funny story: due to a legal dispute with EMI, the album almost didn't make it. Its first version released to the public in 2009 contained only David Lynch's photographs and a blank CD-R. The cover read: "For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will." Eventually the album was released in 2010.
Many guest vocals on it:
Flaming Lips, Black Francis, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson (Cardigans), Mark Linkous, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chessnutt, to name a few.
On second listen I still fail to see the red thread uniting all these songs, but it doesn't matter. It sounds good.
And here's a lazy little self-destructive one with Jason Lytle of Grandaddy. This song feels like one long, very long and very slow, pull of a girl's dirty underwear off a drunk guy's face, just Monday noon after the orgy. Heartbreaking, really.
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Everytime I'm With You (feat Jason Lytle)
P.S. Hey. On second thought and millionth listen, having just danced naked in front of my cat, this song's got a little bit of Zorba the Greek in it, hasn't it? Try it, it works, it's fun, your cat will love you all the same (it doesn't matter who the food comes from.)
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Two Against One (feat Jack White)
Seems to be the year of some unexpected, yet tasty musical cocktails. After Nick Cave pairing with UNKLE, here's another shot for you, a mixture of random ingredients that will not give you headache, thank god.
Gnarls Barkley's Danger Mouse teams up with Italian film composer Daniele Luppi for the project Rome.
Aaaand, they've got guests: Norah Jones and Jack White on vocals.
After listening to it three or four times, I get this feeling that this little album has been somehow "photoshoped". Yeah, check this out: you take one layer, duplicate it, apply Gaussian Blur (say 56%), maybe some Levels then, and then you Overlay it, over the first one. You'll get this soft appearance, this glow all over the image, it's like the dream or flashback sequence in a very romantic and very dramatic flick on Hallmark, Sunday around supper.
Ladies swoon, I'm telling you.
There's this velvety feel all over this album, but maybe's just me. I don't mind it, by the way. It's nice.
It's mostly instrumental (6 out of 15 tracks have vocals). The instrumental parts..I wasn't very impressed. They do sound like a film score, but I fail to see the film. Kind of simple, kind of slurred at times. Fine, all in all, but I've heard better (Mancini? Barry?). And, I am aware that I'm dropping this particular name way too much, but when you've heard what Patton can do with a soundtrack, it's kind of hard to go back to Clayderman, you know. I don't mean they should all be frantic and dyslexic, but a little aim and purpose to it doesn't hurt.
The ones with vocals.
Now, I've really tried to like Norah, to find something special in her. It was really hard and I gave up eventually. She sounds like a jaded Stina Nordenstam. And I can barely stand Stina most of the times. Nothing against them personally, but I do enjoy people with blood in their veins more than the ones without it.
Girls singing in their heads in front of closed windows on a dreamy rainy day aren't really my thing. A statement which, again, says absolutely nothing about them personally, okay? Just ain't my thing, is all.
Norah's songs on this album are three pop songs which stir nothing, disturb no one...they sound like a flowery wallpaper to me.
Jack's songs.
"The World" sounds like a song dragging its feet out of the womb, quite reluctant to get born. The lyrics should be "do I really have to?" No, it's fine, stay there till you get divine.
"The Rose With The Broken Neck", also slow, but more fairytale-like, you can feel the story behind it. But, like all the others, nothing much happens in this song musically. There's no change of rhythm, no surprise, the verses and chorus just repeat till the end and that's it. A perfect lullaby, even for grown-ups.
Now "Two Against One" on the other hand sounds like something. This is Jack's hand. No wonder it's a single. This could have easily been a Raconteurs song, a good second track to heal the hurts of "Steady As She Goes" for instance. Lately I have become more aware of backing vocals in songs and the ones here, minimal as they are, pull it of so nicely. Oooneeee.
So it's a nice little album. It's not life changing, but it's not a miss either. It's a start, I guess. Maybe, out of so many names (well, four), they found it hard to pick just one direction, one vector for the whole thing, one bold arrow, bull's eye baby. They're sprinkling rosy petals more than shooting arrows, but we need flowers too, don't we?
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