Rome - Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi

While Cee Lo Green is off swearing at people who drive by him like some angry hobo, Danger Mouse, Green's Gnarls Barkley cohort is now making soundtracks to films that don’t exist. You know, I’m starting to think ‘Crazy’ was oddly prophetic....

Yet listening to Rome, Danger Mouse’s new record and tribute to the soundscape of the Spaghetti Western, maybe this rodent/super-producer hybrid isn’t as rat-shit crazy as you might think.

Mr. Brian Burton [Danger Mouse’s real name] has a great knack for picking the people who he collaborates with, whether that is Sparklehorse on Dark Night of the Soul or James Mercer in the band Broken Bells. Here is no exception with Burton wisely teamed up with a smorgasbord of talent including Italian composer Daniele Luppi [of such work as the 2009 musical Nine], a reunited Cantori Moderni, the choir put together by Alessandro Alessandroni, which featured on some of the great soundtracks from director Sergio Leone and if that wasn’t enough Rome brings Jack White and Norah Jones along for the ride also.

So does Rome fall into the category of The Good, The Bad or The Ugly? And is it worth a Fistful of Dollars? [I’ll stop there with the terrible puns, promise]

It’s clear from the moment opening track ‘Theme of Rome’ starts with the hiss of old recording equipment, the slow walk of drums and the strum and rattle of electricity that cuts the already heavy atmosphere, that Rome was not created to be a pastiche or to mock, rather that it is has a respect for a genre of film often maligned and sadly, often forgotten.

Rome takes a sharp right turn with second track ‘The Rose With The Broken Neck’; underpinned by Jack White’s often unnerving and ghostly voice this song owes as much to 60’s psych-pop as it does to the Wild West. In fact, rather than a specific genre [film or otherwise] it is in the sixties that this record takes its pleasure. Rome’s songs work well as an album but could as easily soundtrack the work of some of the great Italian directors, such as Fellini. It is testament to everyone on this record that Rome so brilliantly captures a mood and a feeling when such an odd concept, the soundtrack without the film, could have fallen flat.

My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that at just over 34 minutes when album closer ‘World’ rushes by, I’m left wanting more. What really shocks me about Rome however is just how much I like an album that features Norah Jones.

Rome is yet another great album from Danger Mouse, and the perfect soundtrack to a lazy afternoon in the sun.

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If you like this you may also like: The films of Sergio Leone.

Daniel W. Raper