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Some gritty hip hop for this Friday. Danger Mouse has collaborated with Run the Jewels and Big Boi for the release of ‘Chase Me’ from the upcoming movie Baby Driver. Danger Mouse’s masterstroke is the use of samples from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s ‘Bellbottoms’. Big Boi and Run The Jewels’ El-P and Killer Mike do their thing over a beat of drums, bass and guitar. Have a great weekend.
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Danger Mouse’s rise to fame started with his work on The Grey Album – an unlikely and clever blend between The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. The opening track is a version of ‘Public Service Announcement’ mixed with George Harrison’s ‘Long Long Long’. I have to say that the track only benefits from the introduction McCartney organ riff. Who would have foreseen that?! Have a great weekend.
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A year after shooting to prominence mashing up Jay-Z’s The Black Album into The Grey Album, Danger Mouse went one step further and entered into a fully blown collaboration. The production of Danger Mouse and the rap of MF Doom became Danger Doom and together they released The Mouse And The Mask. The album opens with the suitably cartoon-like ‘El Chubra Nibra’. Feel the flow.
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‘Plastic Soldiers’ is a much more poppy sound than the last Portugal The Man track featured on this blog. 5 years and 4 albums after 2008’s Censored Colors, the Alaskan band had teamed up with producer Danger Mouse. The result was 2013’s Evil Friends. After a slow start, the opening track sparks into life with snare and handclaps and some wobbly synthesiser, which all neatly offset John Gourley’s despondent lyrics. At one point, it sounds remarkably like a Polyphonic Spree number. Have a good week.
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In the same year as MGMT’s continued experiments, the Shins’ James Mercer had teamed up with the producer of the moment Danger Mouse. Their Broken Bells venture managed to combine the strengths of their previous work without usurping each other. Danger Mouse’s funky percussion and Mercer’s melodies flourish on ‘The High Road’, the opener for their eponymous debut album.
Producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse, the dark lyrics of Sparklehorse talisman Mark Linkous, the vocals of Wayne Coyne, and accompanying imagery by David Lynch – I was always going to like ‘Revenge’. This was the first song off the final album, Dark Night of the Soul, that Linkous completed before his suicide in 2010. RIP.
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Is it really 6 years? With its line-up of Damon Albarn, Simon Tong, ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon, Fela Kuti-drummer Tony Allen, The Good, The Bad and The Queen were a super group of sorts; but one that was dominated by Albarn’s vision and teamwork with producer Danger Mouse. I liked Blur a lot, but I did not foresee the prodigious and enduring talent that Albarn would become. ‘Herculean’ is an atmospheric classic.
