Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night Of The Soul (320)

You might know of Danger Mouse and his hit-or-miss works already, especially his Gnarls Barkley work. I actually hadn't heard anything by him other than Gnarls Barkley until this year when I got his largely forgettable Broken Bells album. Anyway, I first heard about this collab album on my local NPR station sometime early this year; they had both Danger Mouse and David Lynch on talking about the work they did together and how this album was one of the most fun things Lynch has ever done. Naturally, being an avid fan of the movies Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, I jumped out of my seat when I heard David was venturing into music as well. He actually sings on two of the songs (Dark Night Of The Soul and Star Eyes), one of which is in my personal opinion the best song on the entire album.

Now, the thing about this is, I know next to nothing about Sparklehorse. His Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot album is wonderful, but for some reason I have neither heard much else by him, or anything even about him, so to those who are avid fans of his, I apologize for the lack of emphasis whatsoever on this artist.

So anyway, after that, I looked up some information on the album, and from there it was bliss. I learned that Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas, Black Francis, Iggy Pop, James Mercer, Vic Chesnutt and more all helped out on this solid release. Needless to say, I was ecstatic by this point.

So, I wound up buying this album after I downloaded it because it has become one of my favorite collab albums of all time. Just about every song is rock solid, and Little Girl has become one of my favorite songs of 2009. The cool thing is, the whole album has a tone and style to it, and I am finding it hard to describe it. I suppose it's a dark, eccentric and almost antique sounding, but there aren't words to describe it exactly. Let's say you find yourself in a broken down city and you walk into a small pawn shop filled with odd and creepy things. This album would definitely be in there somewhere, on a small end table covered in cobwebs.

To be frank, you can't go wrong with this album, so check it out. Grab it here and buy it here.

And if you also happen to be a fan of Lynch like I am, have a gander at the Official Website for the album, as he worked on the visuals for both the album and the site.