I don't have the book yet,but plan on getting it after my next pay check.Anyway,I'm glad that the artists involved chose to go the Reznor,Radiohead,etc. route(in a sense) and just said "screw the label--the fans deserve the art".There are FAR too many awesome albums that get put on the shelf,never to be released,that could be classics.Happens all the time to work-a-holics like Bill Laswell.
Buuut...this project was totally unexpected!Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse doing a duo album would've been enough to sell me on it,but then they added in all the great guests and somehow Lynch jumped on board to handle art direction,some vocals AND a book of new art to accompany it?!Insane in the best way.More collaborations like this could be what saves the record industry from imploding.That's what they need to do:make albums that involve more than just digital info put on a CD that can be easily downloaded.Get back into the business of making albums that stand on their own as art instead of pumping out CDs in the most cost-effective manner.
The music:more-or-less this is another Danger Mouse album that has his distinctive, poppy beats and song structures.The addition of Sparklehorse adds guitar and a mellow aspect to the album;he is probably most-recognized in the song "Pain" with Iggy Pop--a good guitar-driven song that is almost punk but isn't because of SH's mellow tinge to the guitar sound.David Lynch's vocals are fed thru pro-tools or some other program that adds distortion;he sounds the same as he did on the Bluebob album and on the "Inland Empire" soundtrack--not so distorted that you can't make out the words, but not so clear that your focus drifts to how,erm...not-so-great of a singer he is.It works for him in the same way that the roboticized vocal distortion on Cynic's two albums does.All the other guest vocalists do a great job and there isn't a single filler track in the whole album.This bodes well for Danger Mouse fans and folks who dig the more poppy side of music;I'm not a huge fan of most of DM's work and I can't stand 90%of pop music,but this album's full of pop music that you won't be slightly ashamed to listen to.This was a bit of a risk for DM too,associating himself with dark lyrics and the dark reputation of Lynch after becoming a household name for producing "sunshine pop" or club-friendly tunes for the most part up until now.
The lyrics are great,the music has lots of repeat-listening value,and it is pop music that I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoy for one of the first times this decade!