ROME

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?

Thanks for the tip, M.