The Dark Night of the Soul, a term coined by the 17th century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross, describes a point in a pious Christian's life when they are unable to reconcile their relationship to God, and take painful steps to purify themselves. Mark Linkous-- better known as Sparklehorse-- would seem to understand something about trials and endurance. If any current performer has endured traumatic, life-altering experiences-- an early-1990s overdose that damaged his legs and almost killed him, several years in and out of states of severe depression and addiction-- while retaining an optimistic disposition, it's him.
In 2005, Linkous' friends tried to pry him out of a depressed state by playing him new music. One record that struck him was Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, which led to a mutually appreciative relationship between the two artists. Danger Mouse worked on a few songs on Sparklehorse's 2006 return-to-form Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, cutting Linkous' delicate, hermetic songs with a new type of sharpness and color. In interviews for that record, Linkous and Danger Mouse kept dropping hints at a future collaboration: maybe it would be called Dangerhorse, maybe Sparklemouse. It would be something.
It ended up as Dark Night of the Soul, involving more than a dozen noteworthy musical collaborators as well as David Lynch, who signed on to create a 100-page book of original photography inspired by Linkous and Danger Mouse's music. As news leaked the buzz grew louder, and people were excited for a reason: Dark Night combined the best elements of a classic rock event with a very modern strategy. Links between the film, music, and art worlds were established, a ton of stars gathered together under the creative guidance of a couple of relative recluses, a regular old CD was marketed like a Hollywood blockbuster and packaged with a photo album for 50 bucks.
This is one particular circumstance where a leak-- even at 160kbps-- is a net positive. This project, incomplete as it may be, is certainly worth "possessing," in whatever form that takes. Linkous and Danger Mouse both have proven conclusively in the past that they know how to choose collaborators, and Dark Night is a well-sequenced and unique album that ingeniously balances its contributors' strengths with the overall theme of the work-- self-examination, often under stark circumstances, in the interest of understanding one's own existence.
It's not signaled outright, but Dark Night comprises four sections, and plays like a revue. Linkous has always feared putting himself out there too much, and seeming too "pop." It makes sense that he'd open this collection with a triptych from Wayne Coyne, Gruff Rhys, and Jason Lytle, all of whom frequently sing in Linkous-like registers shot through with delicate, boyish wonder and play with psychedelia in similarly rewarding ways. On "Revenge", Coyne works in a wheelhouse he's not seen since The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi, evangelizing, "Once we become/ The thing we dread/ There's no way to stop," in the form of a plangent ballad. For his part, Gruff Rhys works best at the level of empire, and the fuzzy psych-country of "Just War" could fit nicely on Phantom Power. As is his manner, Lytle's "Jaykub" traces an everyday schlub's dream of receiving official awards for simply being himself-- until the alarm clock wakes him up.
The middle two sections of the record are its weakest, but there are rewards all the same. Julian Casablancas' "Little Girl" opens what could be dubbed the "punk" section, his slick insouciance sounding strangely out of place eight years after Is This It, at a time when punk vocal styles have largely trended toward the amateurish and overdriven. Regardless, he's able to effectively register his everyday/macho character, nonchalantly singing in front needly guitars (and a rock solo!). It's followed by Frank Black's "Angel's Harp", one of the more forced-feeling cuts, and then Iggy Pop's "Pain", on which he ramps up his best, darkest croon, looking back at his life with a mix of regret and pride. The guitars on Pop's piece are strikingly reminiscent of those on the Magazine song "Shot By Both Sides", which is noteworthy because Real Life was re-released in 2007 by, you guessed it, EMI. The guitars are too crucial to the piece to lose, and Iggy's too big of a name to drop from this collection. Perhaps "Pain" is the reason for the forced abandonment of this whole thing?
Either way, Dark Night shifts again after "Pain" to its second psychedelic section, featuring David Lynch himself, another Lytle number, "Everytime I'm With You", on which he is completely resigned to just hanging out and getting resoundingly fucked up, and James Mercer. Lynch's "Star Eyes (I Can Catch It)" is a piece of muddy string-laden psychedelia, but Mercer's effort, the wonderfully titled "Insane Lullaby", is one of the finest moments on the album. Turns out that Mercer is as much a doppelganger for Linkous as Lytle, Coyne, and Rhys, and his cadence and vocal inflections are situated amidst a gently stunning cacophony of glitches, bells, and strings. He sounds like he's lost, but he also sounds like he's loving it.
Dark Night's best sequence is its last one, when Linkous reunites himself with Nina Persson, formerly of the Cardigans, and singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt (both guested on the 2001 Sparklehorse LP Its Wonderful Life). Persson and Linkous split vocal duties on the country-tinged number "Daddy's Gone", the lovely, sentimental sort of "pop" that Linkous has always seemed so afraid of, yet is also exceedingly, seemingly effortlessly, capable of making. Chesnutt finishes the record with "Grim Augury", which, along with the Lynch-feauring title track, is a fitting one-two punch of rural eccentricity that allows Linkous to reengage with the woodshed hermit side of his musical persona.
