Since 2006, producer/musician Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton has regularly described himself as being less a producer of music and more an “auteur” and patron for music like a director is for film. He has said, “I want to create a director's role in music… I have to be in control of the project I'm doing. I can create different kinds of musical worlds, but the artist needs the desire to go into that world…. Musically, there is no one who has the career I want. That's why I have to use film directors as a model.”
Those are bold words and intriguing to read, if not the easiest to understand. Again, since 2006, fans have frustrated themselves endlessly trying to decode their meaning with limited to no success. As a result, until now, only the auteur himself has actually known what he meant intimately; but on Dark Night Of The Soul, the meaning of the words seem to snap into focus all at once. This album is quite unlike anything Danger Mouse (or anyone else for that matter) has done. Here, with the assistance of the dearly departed Mark “Sparklehorse” Linkous and director David Lynch, Danger Mouse has designed a series of backdrops and environments for an all-star group of players including The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys (from Super Furry Animals), Julian Casablancas (of The Strokes), Iggy Pop, Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Thompson to stand before and play the roles of characters to fit the scene set before them; to date, a record has never been constructed in this fashion before and the idea of such a narrative has never been entertained. The results are a shocking conglomeration of styles and sounds as the singers attempt to fit in and create the best possible song with pre-existing timbres, but also an exciting exercise to hear when it works. Left to their own devices, for example, The Flaming Lips search for hope in a desperate twilight supplied by Linkous in “Revenge” while Gruff Rhys runs for the only patch of sunshine in “Just War.” The difference between those two alone is amazing because, while the fabric of the compositions doesn't change much (it is uniformly dark, muted and bleak) what the singers make of that fabric totally changes the look and feel of the song.
By the same token, some of the singers elsewhere are totally overtaken by the supplied vibes. Julian Casablancas, for example, sounds absolutely terrified as he speed reads through “Little Girl” in order to find his way to the other end of it and Thompson reverts to his Black Francis persona for a lugubrious, attenuated and very, very angry performance of “Angel's Harp” while Iggy Pop trudges through the landscape of “Pain” like the atrophied corpse of Vincent Price. In each of those cases (and more), it's actually both fascinating and mildly terrifying to hear the different transmogrifications that each singer undergoes in order to join with their respective tracks and, while there are weak links in the endeavor (both “Every Time I'm With You” and “Insane Lullaby” are a little too static and gothic for their own good), Dark Night Of The Soul is an interesting character study of the performers involved as well as surprising to hear how willing and able they are to play against type. That said, while some listeners will balk at the shift of power on the album from performer to producer (the best balance struck between the auteur's artistic vision and the singer's natural faculties as a performer is actually Suzanne Vega's performance in “Man Who Played God”) but, in the same breath, Dark Night Of The Soul is an interesting study in how far professional musicians are willing to bend to direction in the name of respect and their appreciation of a unique artistic vision.
Artist:
www.dnots.com/
Album:
Dark Night Of The Soul comes out on July 13, 2010 through EMI/Parlophone. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
