We tend to forget that James Mercer of the Shins has another project with Danger Mouse (real name Brian Burton), and we haven’t heard a lot of Broken Bells for quite some time. But Pitchfork has just announced a new album due sometimes in January 2014.
Entitled ‘After the Disco’, Broken Bells’ website is currently streaming a teaser trailer of a song, and, how do I put it? It may last less than a minute but it’s not quite my taste! Burton and Mercer are running in some kind of desert, reaching a futuristic-looking house, over a soundscape of weird electronic beats, not even very original, and Mercer’s falsetto vocals going all Barry Gibb.
So far, the duo has released a self-titled LP in 2010, followed by a 2011 EP ,Meyrin Fields’, but as much as I like the Shins, and appreciate Danger Mouse’s multi talents, I have never totally bought the product of their collaboration. Sure the trailer is very short, but the whole thing runs like a super production of a retro sci-fi movie soundtrack-ed by some Daft Punk-meet-the-Bee-Gees’ leftovers. It seems to be a big deal, all the big publications are mentioning it, I just hope they give a break to this faux-disco on the rest of the album.