Album review: 'Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present Dark Night of the Soul'
2 stars (out of 4)
After a troubled past in which legal hassles delayed its release by a year, the musical portion of “Dark Night of the Soul” is finally receiving an official unveiling (an accompanying art book by movie director David Lynch was released in 2009).
The occasion is nonetheless bittersweet because one of the album’s creators, Mark Linkous, a k a Sparklehorse, committed suicide last March, which leaves “Dark Night of the Soul” (Capitol) as his unintended epitaph. The artist wrote, performed and produced the music with multi-instrumentalist Brian Burton, a k a Danger Mouse. They then assigned songs to about a dozen singers, including the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, the Shins’ James Mercer, Iggy Pop and Suzanne Vega, who contributed lyrics and melodies.
Unfortunately, the ambitious concept proves too unwieldy to work as a consistent album. The opening trio of tracks, as sung by the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys and ex-Grandaddy front man Jason Lytle, set up a certain level of expectation – a wan, wistful blend of introspection, dread and biting candor – that is disrupted by noisier tracks from Black Francis and Pop and a couple of low-fi throwaways with Lynch on vocals.
The album briefly regains its bearings with “Insane Lullaby,” in which Mercer brings a sense of improbable longing to a track that whirs like a noisy washing machine. But the most resonant moment belongs to Vic Chesnutt, whose “Grim Augury” unspools over Linkouse’s hypnotic Optigan keyboard-playing. Chesnutt, who committed suicide only a few weeks before Linkous died, turns a Norman Rockwell-like domestic scene into a twisted nightmare. It’s the kind of song and sentiment a master surrealist like Linkous surely must have appreciated.
greg@gregkot.com
After a troubled past in which legal hassles delayed its release by a year, the musical portion of “Dark Night of the Soul” is finally receiving an official unveiling (an accompanying art book by movie director David Lynch was released in 2009).
The occasion is nonetheless bittersweet because one of the album’s creators, Mark Linkous, a k a Sparklehorse, committed suicide last March, which leaves “Dark Night of the Soul” (Capitol) as his unintended epitaph. The artist wrote, performed and produced the music with multi-instrumentalist Brian Burton, a k a Danger Mouse. They then assigned songs to about a dozen singers, including the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, the Shins’ James Mercer, Iggy Pop and Suzanne Vega, who contributed lyrics and melodies.
Unfortunately, the ambitious concept proves too unwieldy to work as a consistent album. The opening trio of tracks, as sung by the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys and ex-Grandaddy front man Jason Lytle, set up a certain level of expectation – a wan, wistful blend of introspection, dread and biting candor – that is disrupted by noisier tracks from Black Francis and Pop and a couple of low-fi throwaways with Lynch on vocals.
The album briefly regains its bearings with “Insane Lullaby,” in which Mercer brings a sense of improbable longing to a track that whirs like a noisy washing machine. But the most resonant moment belongs to Vic Chesnutt, whose “Grim Augury” unspools over Linkouse’s hypnotic Optigan keyboard-playing. Chesnutt, who committed suicide only a few weeks before Linkous died, turns a Norman Rockwell-like domestic scene into a twisted nightmare. It’s the kind of song and sentiment a master surrealist like Linkous surely must have appreciated.
greg@gregkot.com
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