Danger Mouse has been one of the most prolific DJs and producers of the last 5 years.  He’s produced albums for Beck, The Black Keys, Gorillaz and is one half of Gnarls Barkley.  If you’re an artist and need beats for your album, DM is the one you want.

DM’s rise to stardom was a result of The Grey Album, a mashup of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the album The Beatles (aka, The White Album).  EMI is the copyright holder of The Beatles discography, and predictably tried to squash distribution of the project.  Also predictably, that didn’t work out so well for EMI, and their efforts only served to increase the visibility of the project.

Danger Mouse’s latest project, Dark Night of the Soul, is a collaboration with Sparklehorse, who are on the (you guessed it) EMI label.  Containing contributions from Frank Black, Iggy Pop, Suzanne Vega and a host of other artists, it’s a release I’ve been waiting for for some time.

It seems that EMI didn’t learn anything from Round 1, because DM and Sparklehorse are now releasing the album as….a blank CD-R.  The online store for the album reads:

Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI,  Danger Mouse is unable to include music on the CD without fear of legal entanglement. Therefore, he has included a blank CD-R as an artifact to use however you see fit.

“However you see fit”, wink wink, nudge nudge.  The album is currently streaming on NPR, and can be found on most of your P2P networks of choice.

I’m happy to see that the major record labels are continuing to do their best to put themselves out of business.