Dark Night of the Soul

I was recently pointed in the direction of some great music, by a friend of mine from Minnesota. She made a post of an upcoming/postponed (at the time) collaboration of one Danger Mouse, and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. The project was cleverly named, Dark Night of the Soul, a phrase coined by 17th century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross. Naturally, I had to pursue the project.

Upon reading my friends' post, which referenced coverage by NPR, I came to find out that David Lynch himself had signed on to the project to do a 100-page book of original photography, inspired by the music of said collaborators.

Some research later, I have come to find that the project has been canned by EMI, due to some unknown copyright claim. It's become a "lost album," if you will. But let's not lose hope so quickly. After all, this is the digital age.

On June 15th, this "lost album" is going to be made available. There will not be a label-backed album release. Instead, Dark Night of the Soul will be releasing two versions of the same thing. The first is a poster and a blank CD-R. The second option is the 100-page Lynch-made booklet and a blank CD-R.

Underneath the ordering form on their website, a note is made: "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."

Wow.

I know what I will be doing on Monday.

Check out the official site below, and be sure to read up on the list of collaborators included in this project.

http://www.dnots.com/

"In Cold Blood"

Today the new U2 album is released. And for those of you who no longer purchase digital discs, there are more than a few alternatives available. I will say no more.

Now to business.

In celebration of the day, I've decided to post something I stumbled across a couple of months ago.

Following the success of U2's seventh studio album, Achtung Baby, while still on their (now famous) Zoo TV Tour, Bono sits in the studio for a one-on-one interview discussing the thoughts and delves of the band as they put the finishing touches on their follow-up album, Zooropa. It is August 1, 1993.
During the heart to heart, Bono discusses the nature of the new songs: the band's fascination with the overstimulated, media-driven world of technology. He then relinquishes this gem to the interviewer:

I read a book once, called In Cold Blood.
Pages of fact did me no good.
I read it like a blind man, in cold blood.

So the story of a three-year-old child.
Raped of soldiers, though she'd already died,
Made the mother watch as they fucked her in the mud.
I'm reading the story now, in cold blood.

More now coming off the wire
City surrounded, funeral pyre
Life is cheaper than talking about it
People choke on their politicians' vomit.

On cable television I saw a woman weep
Live, by satellite, from a flood-ridden street
Boy mistaken for a wastepaper bin
Body that a child used to live in.

I saw plastic explosives and an alarm clock
And the wrong men sitting in the dock
Karma is a word I never understood
How God could take a four-year-old in cold blood.

I live by a beach, but it feels like New York
I hear about 10 murders before I get to work.
What's it going to be, Lord, fire or flood?
An act of mercy or in cold blood?

He then tells Mr. Jackson of his interest in reciting the poem over the backdrop of U2's then unreleased song, "Numb" while the audiovisual loop of an 11-year-old Nazi plays the drum, at the 1936 Olympic Games. Very eerie stuff.