The dark night of the soul is the place in a person’s life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation. This metaphor is also an album title, a collaboration between Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. But not just them: the couple invited a bunch of other musicians along for the vocals to the songs. And they also asked for a contribution from director David Lynch. Lynch created a book full of Lynchian pictures to go along with the album.
It sounded great but it wasn’t to be… record company EMI didn’t give its blessing, so when the combination of Dark Night of the Soul had to be released at the end of 2009, the book was released with a blank CD-R. Scribbled on it, this message: “For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.” Ever since, the album may have been floating and streaming on the web (hence “Revenge”, the track with The Flaming Lips, ending up in our Best Of 2009 chart), but no actual release.
And now it’s July 2010. Tomorrow the album will finally be released as it should’ve been. The cd will include a couple of pictures by Lynch, but overall there is still a dark cloud hanging over the cd. Sparklehorse (a.k.a. Mark Linkous) committed suicide earlier in the year and one of the featured artists, Vic Chestnutt, is also dead.
Here is the cd’s tracklisting:
1. “Revenge” (featuring The Flaming Lips) – 4:52
2. “Just War” (featuring Gruff Rhys) – 3:44
3. “Jaykub” (featuring Jason Lytle) – 3:52
4. “Little Girl” (featuring Julian Casablancas) – 4:33
5. “Angel’s Harp” (featuring Black Francis) – 2:57
6. “Pain” (featuring Iggy Pop) – 2:49
7. “Star Eyes (I Can’t Catch It)” (featuring David Lynch) – 3:10
8. “Everytime I’m with You” (featuring Jason Lytle) – 3:09
9. “Insane Lullaby” (featuring James Mercer) – 3:12
10. “Daddy’s Gone” (featuring Nina Persson) – 3:09
11. “The Man Who Played God” (featuring Suzanne Vega) – 3:09
12. “Grim Augury” (featuring Vic Chesnutt) – 2:32
13. “Dark Night of the Soul” (featuring David Lynch) – 4:38
And here is one of the tracks, “Little Girl”, complete with some of the book’s pictures.
The cd Dark Night of the Soul is released in the UK on July 13, the rest of the world can enjoy it one day earlier. There are limited editions out there, so browse before you buy…
P.S. The Avenue takes one week off and hopes to return stronger on July 19. Au revoir!
Avenue Kurtodrome 
The full album’s now on Spotify. Highly recommended, think I’ll be going old-fashioned CD shopping on Friday.
It is quite good indeed. I had pre-ordered it and have been listening to it a couple of times. “Little Girl” is a recent track I’ve played more than any other in 2010, according to Last.fm.