Thank You!

Soundscapes will be closing permanently on September 30th, 2021.

Open every day between Spetember 22nd-30th

We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years, you have made it all worthwhile! The last 20 years have seen a golden age in access to the world's recorded music history both in physical media and online. We were happy to be a part of sharing our knowledge of some of that great music with you. We hope you enjoyed most of what we sold & recommended to you over the years and hope you will continue to seek out the music that matters.

In the meantime we'll be selling our remaining inventory, including thousands of play copies, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, never to be seen again. Over the next few weeks the discounts will increase and the price of play copies will decrease. Here are the details:

New CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Books 60% off 15% off

Rare & out-of-print new CDs 60% off 50% off

Rare/Premium/Out-of-print play copies $4.99 $14.99

Other play copies $2.99 $8.99

Magazine back issues $1 $2/each or 10 for $5 $15

Adjusted Hours & Ticket Refunds

We will be resuming our closing sale beginning Friday, June 11. Our hours will be as follows:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-7pm
Sunday 11am-6pm

Open every day between September 22nd-30th

We will no longer be providing ticket refunds for tickets purchased from the shop, however, you will be able to obtain refunds directly from the promoters of the shows. Please refer to the top of your ticket to determine the promoter. Here is the contact info for the promoters:

Collective Concerts/Horseshoe Tavern Presents/Lee's Palace Presents: shows@collectiveconcerts.com
Embrace Presents: info@embracepresents.com
MRG Concerts: ticketing@themrggroup.com
Live Nation: infotoronto@livenation.com
Venus Fest: venusfesttoronto@gmail.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

Twitter
Other Music
Last Month's Top Sellers

1. TAME IMPALA - The Slow Rush
2. SARAH HARMER - Are We Gone
3. YOLA - Walk Through Fire
4. DESTROYER - Have We Met
5. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS - Unravelling

Click here for full list.

Search
« HANOI JANES - Year Of Panic | Main | BABY EAGLE - Dog Weather »
Monday
Aug162010

DANGER MOUSE & SPARKLEHORSE - Dark Night Of The Soul

A line from opening track “Revenge” has Flaming Lip Wayne Coyne (continuing his current Pink Floyd aesthetic fixation) singing “I have shot you and stabbed you through your heart,” a lyric which, in light of the late Mark Linkous’ suicide by shooting himself in the heart this past March, could be read as a disturbing hint at his mental state when this album was put together in the last chapter of his life.

Then again, Mark Linkous never shied away from dark moods and themes in all his work leading Sparklehorse since 1995. That’s not going to stop a mini-industry from combing through the lyrics of this collaborative album between Linkous, producer Danger Mouse, director David Lynch, and a cast of singer-songwriter contributors, though, for hints of Linkous using this album as a proxy for the suicide letter he never left behind—the title itself refers to a spiritual crisis in Christian belief, albeit one that is meant to be temporary, not final.

Dissected as a musical whole, Dark Night is a triumph, if only for the fact that the voice of such a singular artist as Linkous is not lost to the other proverbial cooks in the kitchen (including Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop, Gruff Rhys, Suzanne Vega, the late Vic Chesnutt, Granddaddy/Admiral Radley's Jason Lytle, and previous collaborators Nina Persson and Shin/Broken Bell James Mercer from Danger Mouse’s rolodex).

Barring Black Francis’ incongruously heavy-handed clunker, this is a cohesive statement, bound by David Lynch’s mastery of atmosphere and realized by the ubiquitous but absolutely vital Danger Mouse, who is increasingly becoming better known for his rock productions than his hip-hop. The individual performances are mostly stunning and show different facets of each artist, most surprisingly with an unrecognizable Suzanne Vega taking a potentially career-resuscitating turn on the whispered/sung “The Man Who Played God,” one of my favourite tracks from this summer and a far cry from “Luka,” to be sure.

Shame that this album was tied up in legal limbo at the time of Linkous’ death; it’s the first Sparklehorse album to firmly capture my imagination. Now that it is out, you can choose from a variety of formats, but make sure to get one with the 100-page collection of photographs by David Lynch, intended as a “visual narrative” accompaniment to the music. 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.