David Lynch, Sparklehorse, and DangermouseHe got into legal trouble with EMI about it, which continued with a new collaborative work he created. As a result, his next album, a bipartisanship with Sparklehorse, 'Dark Night of the Soul' will be released as album artwork with a blank recordable CD.
Other artists include 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.
The artwork, compiled by David Lynch, comes as a hand numbered hundred page book filled with photographs which provide a visual narrative for the music. It is provided in a limited edition, and will 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.’
I personally always bought CDs because of the covers, and because it is a more handy format than MP3s. A problem became that my collection just grew too big to just keep around, and I started digitizing it so I can play it on my iPod. As a lot of people, I found out it is unfortunately easier to download CDs than to rip them (although I have a large number of CDs which cannot be found on the Internet easily -- I mainly have electronic music from pretty much all genres).
It's a good idea to leverage digital products with real art-work. With abundant bandwith, it will become too easy to compile collections of thousands of CDs and just send them to a friend at will. There isn't a lot the music industry can do about this.
The album has a nice lazy sixties, sometimes eigthies, feeling to it, and the added electronica makes it very contemporary. In all, a good rock electronica cross-over back-grounder. Eight out of ten.
(listen to it here)
