Danger Mouse, Jack White gowestern

Wed 10th Nov, 2010 in International News

After recently revealing that he’ll be producing the next U2 album , workaholic superproducer Danger Mouse has announced another addition to his impressive and ever expanding catalogue of work – Rome a spaghetti western inspired album featuring vocals from Norah Jones and Jack White.

Train spotting fans might remember that Gnarls Barkley’s massive hit Crazy was based around a sample from Gianfranco Reverberi’s score to the 1966 spaghetti western Django and since the release of that track Danger Mouse has been working with Italian composer Daniele Luppi on the soundtrack album.

Hear the the Crazy sample source at 2.25 minutes:

Luppi assisted with the arrangements on the first Gnarls Barkley record and the pair traveled to a converted church in Rome, which had been used by composers including Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani and Bruno Nicolai, to record their tribute to the classic soundtracks.

Confirming the release of the album, Danger Mouse told the Guardian that “I’ve always watched a lot of spaghetti westerns, and I got a bit obsessed with tracking down the soundtracks. Everyone knows about Morricone, but Piero Umiliani, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Piccioni – some of these other guys had amazing stuff going on as well. Back in the early 60s, more experimental composition was looked down on, so the movies were a great vehicle to get away with doing all that.”

“I played some of the music for Jack White when I was on tour shortly after doing the first session, just to show him what I was doing, because at the time everyone thought I was just a hip-hop guy, or whatever. He liked it, but at the time I wasn’t even thinking of using him – you know, it’s Jack White. But in the end, I thought, he’s really into it – why not? There’s a bunch of his vocals on Rose With the Broken Neck, and it doesn’t always sound like him – sometimes you’re like, is that Jack or not?”

The Rome album isn’t the only thing Jack White has been busy working on recently, with the cover of Neil Young’s Needle and The Damage Done he recorded with Laura Marling set for release next week and a single recorded with Swedish psychedelic group Dungen also set for release on White’s Third Man Records in January.

He also showed up on the premiere episode of Conan O’Brian’s new show to play a cover of Eddie Cochran’s Twenty Flight Rock.