Dark Night of the Soul is a collaboration between Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse. Add to this already impressive pairing a dream team of assembled guests (Frank Black, Suzanne Vega, Gruff Rhys, Jason Lytle, Nina Persson, Iggy Pop, Vic Chesnutt, etc.), promised visual accompaniment by David Lynch, and details released on April Fools’ Day, and it is tempting to doubt the existence of something so potentially amazing.

Recent reports about the project suggest that skepticism is justified, though not because the project is bogus. Some “ongoing dispute” between Danger Mouse and label EMI is blocking the official release of the album. This dispute is possibly related to EMI’s disagreement with Danger Mouse over his Grey Album.

In what must be a music industry first, Dark Night of the Soul is being sold as a blank CD-R, and the following message appears at the store section of the project’s website: “Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI,  Danger Mouse is unable to include music on the CD without fear of legal entanglement. Therefore, he has included a blank CD-R as an artifact to use however you see fit.”

NPR is streaming the album in its entirety as well as offering individual tracks. The album is also showing up elsewhere on the Internet, apparently allowing those purchasing the blank CD-R to “use however [they] see fit”.

The CD-R (with poster) is available for $10.00, and another edition (CD-R plus exclusive book of original photographs by David Lynch) is limited to 5,000 copies and available for $50.00.

Various Artists
Dark Night of the Soul [Stream]

Eminem - Relapse
To say the record industry is hoping for big things from Slim Shady is an understatement. The music biz is in freefall, rather like print media, and Eminem is one of the few bonafide platinum disc movers left these days. Undoubtedly this one will sell well, but the truth is Marshall Mathers’ routine is growing pretty stale. Relapse is full of more violent fantasies, drug tales and moping about his screwed up family. Eminem has one of the best flows in the game and it would be nice if he would start using it to actually say something beyond self-indulgent rhymes.

Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Amos continues her multimedia approach to creativity with this compelling 17-track album, each song to be accompanied by a video “visualette” as something of a documentary accompaniment to the music. Amos still defiantly creates “albums”, full works of art with strong conceptual underpinnings. This is not music for the easily distracted. Sit down with the headphones on and give a solid hour of your time and stay away from that “shuffle” button.

The Prodigy have just released a video for the second single from their recent LP Invaders Must Die. Timothy Gabriele recently called “Warrior’s Dance” “the album’s best song” and an “undeniably nitrous-doused breakbeat barnburner”.

TOUR DATES
05/18 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
05/19 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
05/20 - Boston, MA - House of Blues
05/22 - Detroit, MI - The Filmore
05/23 - Chicago, IL - Congress Theatre
05/26 - Anaheim, CA - The Grove
05/27 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium
05/28 - San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
05/29 - Seattle, WA - WAMU Theatre

The Crystal Method released a new album, Divided by Night, last week after quite a lag. Here’s the latest video from the release.