Dark Night of the Soul is streaming on music publisher Chrysalis' blog as you read. The Dangermouse/Sparklehorse/David Lynch collaboration, includes music from Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, Julian Casablancas (of the Strokes, Jason Lytle, and James Mercer (of the Shins, and who discusses his track "Insane Lullaby" in the related below). In addition to the music, a Dark Night of the Soul book will be released by powerHouse this summer and the live experience will center around an art installation debuting May 30 and running through July 11 at L.A.'s Michael Kohn Gallery. The exhibit will span two rooms and include music from the album and photos from the book.
Start a small fire in your pantaloons and check out the teaser:
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Does James Mercer remind you of Phil Collins? He certainly resembles the younger version of Collins and entertained us with Wincing the Night Away (with Collins-esque island sounds). Now he can add band reconstruction, film scoring (not Disney animated, that would be too perfect), and solo collaborations to the list of similarities. James Mercer's creativity has taken him into a world that he feels comfortable exploring alone. Pitchfork has a great article about what we should expect next from Mercer. Here are some highlights:
The Shins will take upon a new look on stage with two new members. Keyboardist Marty Crandall and drummer Jesse Sandoval have been replaced by Ron Lewis of Grand Archives and Fruit Bats on bass and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse on drums. Mercer claimed the change was a result of having "production ideas that I wanted to do that basically required other people." According to Mercer there are no hard feelings with the displaced original members and he looks forward to working with them again. (who knows when he will have the time and I am sure it wasn't as clean as Mr. Mercer eludes) The Shin's will start recording their new record at the end of their spring tour and hope to release at the beginning of next year. New members means a new sound, "a lot more up-temp stuff."
In addition to a side project in which Mercer keeps tight-lipped about, the Shins frontman has gotten together with Modest Mouse to work on a soundtrack for film 180 Degrees South. The film is a documentary by surfing filmmakers the Malloy Brothers. Mercer worked with Isaac Brock, and Modest Mouse members, Joe Plummer, Eric Judy, and Tom Peloso. The soundtrack can be described as "definitely more soundscapes. I did a lot of acoustic guitar work, Isaac did some electric guitar, Eric Judy has like an accordion thing he was doing and of course playing bass, and then violin."
Mercer also dipped his toe into the acting pool, co starring with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein in feature film, Some Days Are Better Than Others, directed by Portland experimental filmmaker Matt McCormick. He comments, "I took acting lessons and everything. I've never acted before...It was a challenge."
Last, but, most likely not the end of it all, Mercer appears on a track of Dangermouse and Sparklehorse's multimedia experience Dark Night of the Soul. Pitchfork reported, that when Mercer spoke about the song he sounded excited about it, "I went in and kind of scatted a melody into existence and with some direction we narrowed it down and then he did some editing and got the melody there and then I wrote lyrics to it. It just came out real cool. I was really stoked. If David Lynch is involved it's just rad, you know?" Yes, James, I do know and with every report coming from this project I get closer and closer to hyping it as having project/album of the year potential.
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