wax&wires

New Danger Mouse Album = Blank CD-R

When I was in high school, my band sold out of CDs at a show we played at. We found some blank CD-Rs that we ended up selling (yes SELLing!), then told the purchasers to just go home and download the MP3s to burn. Looking back, it sounds a bit slimier than I remember it being in our naivety; the customers knew the CDs were blank, and still elected to purchase them to support us.

Well, fastforward to now. Danger Mouse, most notorious for being half of the Gnarls Barkley duo, is in the midst of a legal dispute with EMI. He’s completed a new project with Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) that is hung up on the label end.

The album also features a who’s who in indie rock, featuring artists like James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.

As a next step to get something out, as well as drum up a strong amount of publicity, Danger Mouse will be releasing the album artwork for Dark Night of the Soul with a blank CD-R in lieu of the album itself.

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.

So there’s no clear statement to go download the songs and burn them, but that would be the implication.

To catch a listen of Dark Night of the Soul, head over to NPR, where there’s a stream. There’s also a lot of good info on the NPR site about the ablum.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm. It is filed under wax and tagged with collaboration, legal, majors, promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.