A discussion in our offices arose about who would be putting out the Danger Mouse, Mark Linkous (of Sparklehorse) record Dark Night Of The Soul. Turns out no one is, and the packaging won’t even come with music.
A little digging led us to ask some friends at Waxploitation, who gave us the official low down. Specifically, that a spokesperson for Danger Mouse had this to say:
“Danger Mouse’s new project Dark Night Of The Soul consists of an album length piece of music by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and a host of guest vocalists, along with a collection of original David Lynch photography inspired by and based on the music.
The photographs, which provide a visual narrative for the music, are compiled in a limited edition, hand numbered 100+ page book which will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: ‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’
Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to release the recorded music for Dark Night Of The Soul without fear of being sued by EMI.
Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night Of The Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is.”
This would explain both the packaging, and the fact it’s already starting to pop up on pirate sources. This is an exciting way to make your music available to the masses, yet another sad reminder that intellectual property is simultaneously highly coveted and disregarded so easily. Regardless of what you may think of the music, a record of this magnitude should not have to resort to strategic tactics to have a monetary value.
- Stream The Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse Dark Night Of The Soul In Its Entirety Now
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- Danger Mouse + Sparklehorse Album To Feature Iggy, Strokes, Shins, Flaming Lips, Frank Black, David Lynch And More
- Update: Sparklehorse Release New Album On Astralwerks
- Dark Was The Night (David Byrne, Sharon Jones, Feist, Bon Iver, The National, Dirty Projectors, My Brightest Diamond & More) @ Radio City Music Hall | NYC
May 15th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Your reporting is woefully incomplete. Did you attempt to get any comment from EMI? Did the rep of DM cite any specific details of this dispute? It doesn’t make sense that they’d undertake a project like this without clearing samples, DM certainly is aware of those issues. This smells like hype to me, the artist reps trying to hype the project by railing against “The Man.” Please follow up with some actual reporting.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I want to find good pop music. Help me please.
July 12th, 2009 at 4:02 am
I read your article with great pleasure. Thank you.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:01 am
I would like to see a continuation of discussions on this topic.