This complation has begun to feel a bit like a soundtrack - to my own doings, I mean. I've been in a slightly a weird mood these last couple of weeks, and the music on Dark Was The Night has seemed obscurely apt.
Anyway, there's a lot of good stuff on here. With this kind of compilation, particularly one stretching across two discs, there's little point picking out the disappointments, so instead, a short list of highlights:
* The New Pornographers - "Hey, Snow White". A cover of a Destroyer song, I think (how very). Mildly, gloriously anthemic.
* Dave Sitek - "With A Girl Like You". Google tells me that this one's a Troggs cover. But before I knew that, I knew that, fuzzy, gentle, dreamy, warm, it was one to take to heart.
* Yo La Tengo - "Gentle Hours". Mellow and drifty, but strangely arresting.
* Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch - "Lua". Actually, as marvellous as Welch is, and as winsome the prettily bare folkesque melody, it's pretty much David Rawlings' guitar that puts the finishing touch to it.
* Dirty Projectors & David Byrne - "Knotty Pine". Ha! Just very cool.
* Riceboy Sleeps - "Happiness". The guy from Sigur Ros, sans vocals. Sounds just the way you'd expect. Like floating on a bubble-mix bubble-coloured cloud.
* Andrew Bird - "The Giant of Illinois". Even if it does cop some licks from Pachelbel's canon.
* My Brightest Diamond - "Feeling Good". And I never knew that this wasn't a Matt Bellamy original. Shame on me! This is a really ace version, anyway.
Also, new songs by Spoon, the Arcade Fire, the National, Stuart Murdoch and Cat Power.
