Brian Joseph Burton a.k.a. Danger Mouse
Brian Joseph Burton a.k.a. Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse are releasing a new album – a blank CD.

What?

Seems like their new collaboration, Dark Night Of the Soul got caught up in red tape and the label, EMI, has killed it.

Lucky for Danger Mouse, he is an inspired bugger. The full package, with 100 page book is coming out, with a blank CDR and the brilliant instructions “use it as you will”. The record company cannot stop them.

Danger Mouse is, of course, one of the most in-demand producers right now. Yet he’s had a mischievous, anarchist side. He’s a hit maker with Gnarls Barkley, but will take on producing a garage rock album with Beck. He famously made his name with a mash-up album of Jay-Z and the Beatles (the Grey Album). Sparklehorse is pretty much just Mark Linkous these days. Sparklehorse made a couple of fantastic albums in the late 90s but have been mainly quiet. Linkous’s last major project outside of Sparklehorse was a Daniel Johnston tribute.

The Dark Night Of the Soul has been on our list of things to check out, mainly due to the insane line-up of guests. Iggy Pop, Frank Black, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Vic Chesnutt, The Flaming Lips, Jason Lytle (of Grandaddy), James Mercer of The Shins, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals and Suzanne Vega.

Danger Mouse especially has a track record going off course. The Grey Album was a perfect example. A limited edition album, with no cleared samples, was all over the internet. It was the first time Mr Mouse clashed with EMI. Dark Night… was released as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-stream. To be honest, we think Danger Mouse is more careless than clever with how he gets his music out there. We are still watching though.

So how will people use that blank CD? The crushing subtext is for people to download and burn their own copies. The finished record will no doubt hit the internet very soon. But who will actually burn it to disc? In the era of huge, affordable harddrives, is anyone backing up to CD? Will this experiment work? Will anyone actually buy a blank CD?

Use it as you will. As anachistic as all this is, we think most people will throw that blank CD in the bin, if not leave it in the shops.

Dark Night Of the Soul site –http://www.dnots.com/

Danger Mouse official site –http://www.dangermousesite.com/

Sparklehorse –http://www.sparklehorse.com/