Danger Mouse‘s resume of bringing his psych-pop soul to well-established artists is long and notable, including runs with The Shins’ James Mercer in Broken Bells, CeeLo in Gnarls Barkley, Jack White on the Rome project, and producing radio hits for the likes of The Black Keys and Portugal. The Man. He can be a bit of a controversial figure because his sound is so distinctive, with some longtime fans of artists feeling some sort of ownership into the purity of their sound. But really he is one of the most important and influential producers of this century. And his latest project with Yeah Yeah Yeah‘s leader Karen O should continue that run.
The pair released their first song together, “Lux Prima,” and it is a nine-minute, sprawling bit of atmospheric indie pop. Karen O’s voice at the center remains one of the most captivating presences of modern times, the kind of singer that listeners can’t help paying attention to. It’s just the first taste of a full-length project from the two, of which the details have yet to be announced.
Karen O said the following about the song:
“Lux Prima is the first song we wrote for the record. After making music for the past twenty years and embarking on making this record with Danger Mouse I knew a couple things: one was that the spirit of collaboration between us was going to be a pure one, and two was that the more I live the less is clear to me. When you create from a blurry place you can go places further than you’ve ever been. I think we both were excited to go far out.”
Danger Mouse added the following:
“With ‘Lux Prima,’ we were really looking for a place rather than a sound. It was our first shared destination so we thought we’d take our time getting there. The song itself is a bit of a journey, but all the parts felt like they needed each other. So it became our blueprint in a sense. We wrote the album in deliberate isolation. Along the way asking ourselves lots of questions. We didn’t find many answers, but found it was more about the questions themselves.”
Check out Karen O and Danger Mouse’s “Lux Prima” above. The song will be released on a limited edition white 12” with etched b-side exclusively at independent record stores via BMG on December 14th.
