Broken Bells

Broken Bells

[Columbia; 2010]

Links: Broken Bells | Columbia | Purchase on Insound

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The Shins’ James Mercer and Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) form Broken Bells, the duo that has caught nearly everyone’s attention–Dave Letterman being no exception. The late night host invited the two gentlemen (and their backing musicians) to play on his show last night (March 9). Mercer’s voice sounds amazing here, and Burton rocks those drums, albeit with a certain reserved pensiveness. Also, you can watch Letterman act awkward pre- and post- performance, like someone’s out-of-touch grandpa:

This is just speculation, but perhaps the “reserved pensiveness” comes from the duo losing their dear friend and collaborative partner over the weekend, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. These guys are troopers for performing in light of such a sad event.

Danger Mouse (nee Brian Burton) teamed up last year with Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous) and film director David Lynch to collaborate on an interesting project which brought together tons of big names, such as Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, The Flaming Lips, and James Mercer of The Shins (and now Broken Bells, Mercer’s new band with Burton). That giant collaborative effort came to be known as Dark Night of the Soul.

Although the details were pretty ambiguous at the time, EMI couldn’t release the album, but accompanying books were sold. Each book came with a blank CD-R, indirectly instructing the buyer to download the album from file sharing sites.

If there was a dispute between Burton and EMI, it has since cleared up, because EMI has agreed to officially release Dark Night of the Soul this year, “hopefully [...] in June or something like that,” according to Burton.

The uberpowerful major label recently released this official statement: “We can confirm that EMI are working with Brian Burton AKA Danger Mouse again, and are delighted to be doing so.” –EMI

I suppose this is good news, especially for people who still love physical formats. Look out for Dark Night of the Soul this summer on EMI.

(BBC 6Music News)

Broken Bells, if you’ve not heard already, is the new, and reasonably exciting 2010 musical partnership between The Shins frontman James Mercer, and super-producer/Gnarls Barkley founder Danger Mouse. How a record between these two will pan out is anybody’s guess, but perhaps this new track will give you something of an idea. Entitled “The High Road”, it’s now available for free download from the new, cryptic Broken Bells website. (Seriously, what is that pulsating pink blobby planet thing?) Anyway, the new song. Basically, it sounds just like the Shins, only a little bit more spacey and atmospheric. Translation = it’s quite good. Try it for yourself here.

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse

Dark Night of the Soul
[Self Released/Unreleased; 2009]

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Links: Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse | Purchase Album

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Right from The Tripwire:

A discussion in our offices arose about who would be putting out the Danger Mouse, Mark Linkous (of Sparklehorse) record Dark Night Of The Soul. Turns out no one is, and the packaging won’t even come with music.

A little digging led us to ask some friends at Waxploitation, who gave us the official low down. Specifically, that a spokesperson for Danger Mouse had this to say:

“Danger Mouse’s new project Dark Night Of The Soul consists of an album length piece of music by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and a host of guest vocalists, along with a collection of original David Lynch photography inspired by and based on the music.

The photographs, which provide a visual narrative for the music, are compiled in a limited edition, hand numbered 100+ page book which 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.’

Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to release the recorded music for Dark Night Of The Soul without fear of being sued by EMI.

Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night Of The Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is.”

This would explain both the packaging, and the fact it’s already starting to pop up on pirate sources. This is an exciting way to make your music available to the masses, yet another sad reminder that intellectual property is simultaneously highly coveted and disregarded so easily. Regardless of what you may think of the music, a record of this magnitude should not have to resort to strategic tactics to have a monetary value.

Yet again, EMI manages to piss off their consumers. This sort of explains the NPR stream too.

The stream for the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse/David Lynch collaboration entitled Dark Night of the Soul is back up and this time it’s on NPR. Check it out here.

Dark Night of the Soul
01. Revenge (feat. The Flaming Lips)
02. Just War (feat. Gruff Rhys [of Super Furry Animals])
03. Jaykub (feat. Jason Lytle)
04. Little Girl (feat. Julian Casablancas [of The Strokes])
05. Angel’s Harp (feat. Black Francis [aka Frank Black of the Pixies])
06. Pain (feat. Iggy Pop)
07. Star Eyes (I Can Catch It) (feat. David Lynch)
08. Everytime I’m With You (feat. Jason Lytle)
09. Insane Lullaby (feat. James Mercer [of The Shins])
10. Daddy’s Gone (feat. Nina Persson and Mark Linkous)
11. The Man Who Played God (feat. Suzanne Vega)
12. Grim Augury (feat. Vic Chesnutt)
13. Dark Night of the Soul (feat. David Lynch)

Dark Night of the Soul will be officially released in July. The Dark Night of the Soul live experience will debut on May 30th and run until July 11th at LA’s Michael Kohn Gallery.

Pitchfork is reporting that music publisher Chrysalis Music is streaming the upcoming Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse/David Lynch collaboration entitled Dark Night of the Soul.

Dark Night of the Soul will be an album, book, and live experience. The album/book will be released by powerHouse over the Summer. The album itself features Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse along with the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, Jason Lytle, and James Mercer of The Shins. The book that accompanies the album contains over 100 photos by film director David Lynch.

The Dark Night of the Soul live experience will debut on May 30th and run until July 11th at LA’s Michael Kohn Gallery. The installation spans two rooms and features music from the album and photos from the book.

Stream Dark Night of the Soul
Official Dark Night of the Soul website

Check out the trailer for the project featuring David Lynch’s visuals and the album’s tracklisting after the jump.

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