Dark Was the Night

By an unexpected chance of fortune I have Dark Was the Night compilation which was meant to be released on the 16th February. However, if you ask the nice people at Rough Trade they will happily give you one in advance, because that’s what happened with me today.

I asked for the CD not because I’m cheeky, but rather I got a tip-off that it existed today and as I need a lot of help when I’m in Rough Trade asked the person who was busily running about getting me the Alele Diane album. I would love to say I bought it straight off knowing all about the charitable nature behind the double disc compilation, but all I knew was that it was a charity related release and had Tightrope by Yeasayer on it as well as tracks from Bon Iver and the New Pornographers. Does that make me terrible? Possibly, but now I’ve read up on it, I can say I would have bought it for the principles behind it as well as its contents.

Dark Was the Night is organised by The Red Hot Organisation that raises awareness for AIDS as well as donating proceeds from artistic projects to research and education campaigns related to the condition.  Sometimes it is easy to become cynical about HIV and AIDS campaigns because I would have hoped after 20 years of them people might know the basics, but even in Western and so called ‘educated’ societies there is still some ignorance and stigma that needs to be stamped out. Red Hot Organisation attempts to bring HIV and AIDS into the public domain while trying to distance itself from the conventional, they argue inefficient, media channels. Which is good, because discussion helps people understand therefore hopefully encourage progress in research and programs to tackle the disease.

As to the compilation, there is a good range of artists whom I like contributing exclusive tracks, see here for a full track listings. I was disappointed with the Yeasayer track because I guess I was expecting a version similar to that on the Blogoteque, and people have said the disc version hasn’t been mixed as well as it could have been, which makes me hope that should it be released on an EP or album it sounds better. Which brings me to some past loves, The New Pornographers were great, but their last album left something to be desired in comparison to the the releases like Mass Romantic. Their song on the compilation, Hey Snow White, a cover of one of Dan Bejar’s songs (a member of the New Pornographers) isn’t that inspiring and I am told the original (which is true of all of their covers) is much better. Likewise I liked Arcarde Fire’s first album and EP but never really clicked in with later releases to the point where I recognise their voices but don’t enjoy listening. However, leaving aside laments of times passed, Brackett, WI by Bon Iver is wonderful as is expected of Bon Iver. The slight problem with compilations is that I’m not always certain who I’m listening to, and as I’m holed up in the library at the moment, I feel bad for keeping on checking the artists instead of Cdks but I definately prefer the first disc, but that might be due to more generalised familiarity of the artists.

Anyway, go out and buy it, even you only like a few of the tracks, its for charity, and don’t let me catch you whoring it form the internet, because that is more terrible than buying it for just the music – you might also hear some new artists, and you get to hear Tightrope, which I still like because I’ve heard what it can be…

Filed under: Articles, Arcade Fire, Beirut, bon iver, Dark Was The Night, MANY OTHERS, Red Hot Organisation, The New Pornographers, Yeasayer