Dark Night Of The Soul [+Digital Booklet] (Amazon Exclusive Version)

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Original Release Date: July 13, 2010
• Release Date: July 13, 2010
• Label: Capitol
• Copyright: (C) 2010 EMI Records Ltd This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved. (C) 2010 EMI Records Ltd
• Total Length: 53:53
• Genres:
• ASIN: B003TJ3OY8
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,570 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark last night, July 13, 2010

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Night Of The Soul (Audio CD)

Let us all pause for a moment, and bow our heads for a brilliant musician. Last March, a deeply depressed Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse committed suicide.

But before he passed away, Linkous finished one last collaboration with Danger Mouse, appropriately entitled "Dark Night of the Soul." Lots of spacefuzz rock'n'roll and colorful psychedelic pop, with countless guest singers/musicians/composers adding their own unique stylings to the music. And sadly, you can hear some foreshading of Linkous' loss in there.

Every song has guest vocalists who also helped produce and composing their songs. It begins with the warm, liquid psychedelica of "Revenge," in which Wayne Coyne croons sadly, "In my mind/I have shot you and stabbed you through your heart/I just didn't understand/The ricochet is the second part..."

Then it switches to the shimmering, glitchy "Just War" with Gruff Rhys, and the fluttering folk-rock of "Jaykub" with Jason Lytle. After those through songs, there's a brief interlude of pure rock'n'roll -- Julian Casablancas slurs through the lean "Little Girl," Black Francis drawls through the half-baked"Angel's Harp," and Iggy Pop... well, he burns through a fiery expanse of dark hard-rock. What else?

Then things sink back into the spacefuzz again, with James Mercer, Jason Lytle, Vic Chestnutt, David Lynch, Suzanne Vega and Nina Persson all contributing. There's the ethereal electronic "Star Eyes (I Can Catch It)," the twinkly chaotic "Insane Lullaby," the bluesy "Daddy's Gone" and "The Man Who Played God," the melancholy folkpop of "Everytime I'm With You," and with bluesy streamers of synth and mats of grimy guitar in the last two songs.

The biggest problem with "Dark Night of the Soul" is that it sounds like too many different artists -- it often sounds more like a compilation of these various people than a unified album. That said, the only song I didn't like was "Angel's Harps," which just sounded half-baked. The rest of the songs are melancholy, tinged with hopelessness and sadness.

The softer songs are full of different instrumentations -- spacey synth that twinkles, shimmers and glitches, xylophones, soft strings, fuzzy guitars and murmuring vocals. The harder, rockier songs have traces of those things, but they rely more on driving guitar and raw blasts of bass -- a particular highlight is Iggy Pop's song, which starts off as a simple hard-rock song, but blossoms with streams of glittering synth and blooming whorls of guitar.

The guest vocalists also do brilliant jobs -- Wayne Coyne, Jason Lytle and Jason Mercer are particular highlights, but all of them are expertly woven into their music. And the lyrics are simply beautiful -- lots of striking imagery ("But dreams float up/from fishers in the flood"), hopelessness ("The last survivor crawling through the dust/There is just war/A contribution till humankind/Turns to rust") and general sadness ("I woke up and all my yesterdays were gone").

Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse crafted a beautiful, saddening collection of songs that turned out to be Linkous' last work -- I wasn't crazy about Black Francis' song, but all the rest are lovely.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the better albums this year, July 13, 2010

By 

William Merrill "eclecticist" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Night Of The Soul (Audio CD)

Recorded last year prior to Broken Bells, this Danger Mouse collaborative project has now come out "officially" in Summer 2010 after the various legal wranglings have been settled. (Of course it was available in various ways online long before this CD version.) I find myself liking it even more than the Broken Bells release because the songwriting here tends to be better overall. The BB album had a few excellent songs, but it also had some dropoffs in quality. That kind of inconsistency would seem more likely on a "project" record like Dark Night, with its eleven different singers, but it really hangs together very well. I liked everything except the noisy, chaotic one-two punch of the back-to-back songs featuring Black Francis and Iggy Pop, respectively. (Those two songs are too Tom Waits-ish for me.) There is a degree of gloominess to the proceedings, as one would expect from major contributors Sparklehorse and Lynch, but there also a kind of pervasive luminosity and melodic beauty to the material that's utterly charming. Naturally it's hard not to dwell on the subsequent suicides of both Mark Linkous and Vic Chestnutt within a few months of this album's production, especially hearing the tune Vic sings (called "Grim Augury"!). With Dark Night now part of their final legacies, it leaves me sorry not to be able to hear any more from the two.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance Turned Tribute, July 15, 2010

By 

J. Loudon (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Night Of The Soul (Audio CD)

Sparklehorse is the pseudonym given to the work of singer/songwriter Mark Linkous who tragically killed himself in Knoxville, TN on March 6 of this year at the age of 47. Originally set for a 2009 release, Dark Night of Soul was designed by Sparklehorse to be a multimedia project with producer Danger Mouse and movie director David Lynch. The anticipation surrounding the album's release grew as guest artists ranging from Julian Casablancas of the Strokes and Frank Black of the Pixies to Iggy Pop and The Flaming Lips added their own unique touch to individual songs on the album.

The album opens with "Revenge" featuring Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, a slow groove that sets the mood for what I can only describe as the first act of the record. Often seen as one of the few bands comparable to Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals follows "Revenge" with "Just War" that lifts the mood slightly while maintaining the slower tempo of its predecessor. Jason Lytle of Grandaddy finishes this first act with "Jaykub" which maintains the dreamy sonic wavering heard on various instruments throughout the start of the album, but once again adds some light to the darkened approach to this Dark Night of Soul.

With the first three tracks flowing so perfectly together, a simple three hits of the snare drum announce a new act, led by The Strokes' Julian Casablancas and the incredibly Strokes-like single "Little Girl." By the time Casablancas' track concludes, it is clear each artist was given a great deal of creative freedom with their collaborative efforts. Any doubts are left behind after Black Francis and Iggy Pop follow Casablancas with tracks that could easily be mistaken for lost tracks by their own respective bands.

Although a 100-page book of photographs by David Lynch accompanies the record, his presence isn't felt in the music until halfway through when the shimmering "Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It)" enters. His compositions play very much like his movies, eerie and intriguing. "Star Eyes" and the closing track "Dark Night of the Soul" may be his only musical contributions, but their artistic and expressive bounds turn from brilliant collaboration to fitting memorial for a talent that took himself from this world far too early. For those of you who have been waiting anxiously for this album to hit the shelves, Dark Night of Soul is a gem worth the delay.

Similar Artists: Pavement, Tom Waits

Track Suggestion: "Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It)"