Friday 3 April 2009

Dangermouse + Sparklehorse = DANGERHORSE!


Sparklehorse is the name under which Mark Linkous has recorded four brilliantly woozy alt.country records over the last 15 years, including 2001's masterpiece (and one of my all time favourites), 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

Danger Mouse is the genius super-producer who is in Gnarls Barkley, produced the second Gorillaz LP, and the most recent Beck album, did that 'Grey Album' thing, and a bunch of other stuff.

Together, they are DANGERHORSE, a collaborative project that's been talked about since 2006, but, which now - finally - seems to be bearing fruit. Well, 'DangerHorse' was the working title anyway. But they don't seem to be using that name anymore.

A 'mysterious poster' has been sent to a number of bloggers (not us, sadly), promising an album - 'Dark Night Of The Soul' in summer 2009. It also boasts an eye-watering list of collaborators: Black Francis (Pixies), Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Nina Persson (The Cardigans, A Camp), Iggy Pop, Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals, Neon Neon), James Mercer (The Shins), Vic Chestnutt, Suzanne Vega, The Flaming Lips (!), and David Lynch (!!). It's presumably all the artists who wanted to be on album with the words 'Dark' and 'Night' in the title in 2009, but missed out on that other one. Other than the above, details are non-existent at the moment, (this website doesn't shed a lot of light) but if the album emerges and is anywhere close to the sum of its parts, it could turn out to be the best record of 2009. Possibly the greatest thing ever.

2 comments:

Hummer said...

I was wondering when you were going to write this one up.

The guest list does look great and I am hopeful of a good album but at the same time it could turn out another dish of "Timberland Salad" at least they have ditched the DangerHorse name.

Nick said...

Yep, it could go horribly pear shaped. But I'm excited!