"Hear The Year's Most Mysterious Album In Its Entirety, Weeks Before Its Release"

Thank you NPR

http://www.npr.org/templa...n-20090516

May 15, 2009 - When the first cryptic bits of news about Dark Night of the Soul began trickling in earlier this year, it all sounded too good to be true. Though the whole project was shrouded in mystery, it appeared that Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, two of the most inspired artists making music today, were collaborating on a new album. That alone was enough to get our geek gears spinning with excitement. But there was an unusual twist that few of us at NPR Music could make sense of: Director David Lynch was somehow involved.

It all started back in March, at the South by Southwest music festival and conference. A number of us on the NPR Music team had noticed strange posters around downtown Austin, Texas, that read "Dark Night of the Soul." They looked like movie posters and had David Lynch's name on them, alongside names of some of our favorite artists, like Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, Vic Chesnutt, Jason Lytle and more. We wondered if it was some sort of musical film.

Soon after our Austin trip, NPR Music received copies of the mysterious posters in the mail. No return address. Someone was messing with us. I tried to find out more, but had zero success. Then, weeks later, I finally got a note from a publicist with all the details we'd been waiting for.

It turns out Dark Night Of The Soul is an album and the songs were written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, though the myriad singers featured on each track also had a big hand in composing and producing the work. The album was initially going to be packaged with a book of photos taken by David Lynch. But now there's word that the music may never be officially released at all.

An unnamed spokesperson for Danger Mouse says that "due to an ongoing dispute with EMI" the book of photographs will "now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'"

You can order the book, sans music, from the official Dark Night Of The Soul Web site. In the meantime, you can hear the entire album here on NPR Music as an Exclusive First Listen.

I've listened to the record all the way through at least a dozen times, and can confirm that Dark Night of the Soul delivers in every way you'd hope for. It's beautiful but haunting, surreal and dark, but sometimes comical and affecting, with ear-popping, multilayered production work. It just gets more mesmerizing with every listen.

In addition to Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, other artists appearing on Dark Night of the Soul include James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.

This looks insane!!! Thank you for posting.

whoa! what's going on here?

and you know i've gotta have this. everything david lynch does must be mine!

:covet:

TRON said:

Me too ~

MoonSongs said:

what a truly awesome find! can't wait to see what this is all about.

I think I'm downloading this now!

TRON said:

this is so frustrating! i hope they work out the rights to put out the music and the book. the blank CD-R idea is just sad.

David Lynch?

Downloading.

I'm down with all those things. AND the O.P. that started this thread. Going to check it out. Thanks for the info.


And, uh... .welcome to the org. Hope you survive

What an amazing first thread on the org, arialuna! Thanks for this info. I'm downloading as I type!

I posted this in other thread about this topic, but I am going to report here because I adore Sparklehorse and I want others to get turned on to the older stuff as well.....



Mark Linkous (i.e., Sparklehorse) is perhaps the most slept on American artist of the last 15 years. If you like this album, you really owe it to yourself to check out Sparklehorse's back catalog. I like this new work, but not as much as the older stuff. Danger Mouse also produced the last Sparklehorse album, Dreamt For Lightyears in the Belly of the Mountain. My favorite Sparklehorse albums are Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Good Morning Spider, and It's A Wonderful Life. All of the them are excellent.

the more i think about it, the more i like the idea (intentional or not) of this album being broken up and distributed as mp3s among various music blogs. it's like an easter egg hunt to collect this mysterious, oddly-hyped album...which is a very lynchian way of doing things.

Anxiety said:

it is a very modern distribution model, isn't it.

Stax said:

well, of course if you snoop around enough, you can find the whole thing as one zip file, but that's not as fun.

Anxiety said:

funny you mention it. i loaded a bit torrent client on my computer for the first time ever just to get these songs. i guess i did spoil the fun, but as soon as i heard this music my not get released I went into a mad panic.

Anxiety said:

I found a complete zip file after about 90 seconds of searching. I did it wrong.