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Rating: By Fabrizio Galassi
In 2004, a relatively unknown DJ decided to create the “Grey Album” by combining the Beatles’ “White Album” with Jay-Z’s “Black Album”: it garnered over a million downloads. He was noticed by Damon Albarn who invited him to produce the second Gorillaz album, thus Danger Mouse immediately entered the list of the most sought-after producers in the market before becoming a superstar with his creation Gnarls Barkley.
The heights of the charts didn’t make him lose his balance, especially artistically, so Brian Burton (the real name of Danger Mouse) continues his search for the perfect song to produce; the meeting with Mark Linkous was inevitable, and the two locked themselves in the studio as early as 2006 for the production of “Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain,” released under the name Sparklehorse. Thanks to his work with Burton, Linkous emerged from a terrible depression and referred to his colleague as: “The Jimi Hendrix of the laptop.”
July 13, 2010: the album Dark Night of the Soul is released by EMI, marking the culmination of Danger Mouse’s search, thirteen perfect songs composed together with Mark Linkous and performed by as many guests including Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, and Black Francis of the Pixies.
The languid and ethereal music of Linkous meets the brilliant insights of Danger Mouse, an album composed following the metaphor-poem of the Spanish priest John of the Cross: ‘La noche oscura del alma,’ a spiritual place of one's soul, when one finds themselves enveloped in solitude and desolation.
But “Dark Night of the Soul” is a perfect album for any sentiment, whether you find yourself in the middle of a bustling market or in front of the PC updating your online reputation. It is the sum of some of the most brilliant minds of the last 110 years of popular music and it is obvious that it's a fundamental album, to be placed in the folder “Best Albums of All Time,” because Linkous’s compositions are immortal, eternal, they transcend fashions, possessing the same simple genius as John Lennon’s songs and unfortunately, in both cases, the impossibility of hearing new ones (Mark took his own life on March 6th last).
If you want to test before buying, we recommend “Little Girl” with Julian Casablancas and “Just War” with Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals.
Tracklist
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