Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi – Rome

That crafty varmint Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) done gone collaboratin' again; this time with Italian composer Daniele Luppi on a predominately instrumental eulogy to the Spaghetti Western genre. Five years in the making, the album features the I Cantori Moderni choir from the original Sergio Leone movie soundtracks, together for the first time in 40 years. For a fistful of dollars they decamped to the Forum studios in Rome, used by Ennio Morricone, the man responsible for the most memorable Leone soundtracks and to whom this album is an obvious homage.

For a few dollars more, the Mouse has lassoed in Jack White and Norah Jones to act as chief protagonists in this imaginary movie. The good? Quite a lot actually. White brings a nice air of subtle derangement to proceedings on the self-penned Two Against One and The Rose With The Broken Neck, adding plot and character (albeit loosely) to the insinuated, yet not-quite-there narrative. Norah Jones, previously known as the queen of MOR pop jazz proves a nice counterpoint to White’s tortured soul, singing with an uncharacteristic sang froid, particularly on album highlight Black, painting a picture of the disaffected desolation generally associated with the Wild West.

Meantime, throughout the instrumental interludes, opulent string and choral arrangements with understated guitar, lazy xylophones and even the appearance of a Hammond organ on The Matador Has Fallen, meander euphorically, an atmospheric soundscape which masterfully succeeds in rendering the implied visual. The bad? A disconnect too far from Jones on the somewhat insipid Season’s Trees. The ugly? Well, the album cover art's a dirty som' bitch!