Ahead of International Record Store Day, held this Saturday 20th April and celebrated with multiple events and special releases, American singer-songwriter Mark Lanegan has teamed up with Richard Melville Hall, the musician better known as Moby, for a Record Store Day single, entitled “Lonely Night.”
Alongside the music video for the new collaboration, Moby spoke of his sentiments on collaborating with Lanegan. “I’ve been a fan of Mark’s from his early SST Records days, and I’ve always wanted to work with him,” he said.
“He has one of the best and most distinctive voices of the last 25 years. Now that we live near each other it ended up being really easy working on a song together,” he continues. “In producing the song, Spike Stent and I incorporated some very unusual production techniques.”
For those playing at home, Spike Stent is an English producer and mixing engineer who has worked with Beyoncé, Björk, Depeche Mode, Coldplay and Massive Attack, just to name a few. He’s also the chap whose mixing desk was cloned by software company Waves, for those wanting to recreate Stent’s signature sound in their own creations.
“We ran all of the instruments through a distortion pedal into a guitar amp. So really there are only 3 tracks: left channel through a distortion pedal and guitar amp, right channel through a distortion pedal and guitar amp, and Mark’s vocals,” Moby says of working with the producer. “The end result is intentionally very broken and atmospheric.” “He (Mark Lanegan) has one of the best and most distinctive voices of the last 25 years… it ended up being really easy working on a song together.” – Moby
The new song is set to a video of time-lapse photography of the Californian Desert, beautifully highlighting the contrast between the desolate, open terrain and the ever-lit expanse of Los Angeles city humming in the background.
The footage was crafted by Californian director Colin Rich, who was commissioned to shoot the video for “Lonely Night”, which accompanied by Lanegan’s soaked, darkened, Dylan-esque vocals, makes for a particularly somber piece.
Also set in the Californian Desert is Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, from which Moby just finished his second appearance. “Just got back from Coachella (which, I feel the need to state the obvious, was amazing: the weather, the line-up, the audience, the location, etc, etc),” Melville recently posted to his website.
Meanwhile Lanegan has had his own share of news appearances lately, recently announced as one of the many notable artists featuring on the upcoming sixth Queens Of The Stone Age album, Like Clockwork. The latest in a rich musical career that includes founding and fronting grunge band The Screaming Trees, collaborations with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana pre-Nevermind, being a consistent feature on QOTSA releases, and also his collaborations with Isobel Campbell (of Belle & Sebastian).
In May, the gravelly-voiced singer will also release an album with multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood called Black Pudding, with lead single “Penecostal,” already released.
It was also revealed that Lanegan recently teamed up with QOTSA lead singer Josh Homme to pen a theme song for American chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain’s new show, as SPIN reports.
The Moby/Mark Lanegan single will be released this Saturday for Record Store Day on an exclusive 7” vinyl single, sold with a remix from English electronic artist Photek on the B-side. ‘Lonely Night’ will be released on Moby’s label Little Idiot for the day dedicated to celebrating independently owned record stores and the wonder of music.
Record Store Day was originally founded in the US back in 2007, and encourages independently owned record stores around the globe to come together to spread the love of music that you can physically hold in your hands. To help promote this year’s event, Record Store Day named Jack White their official ambassador for 2013.
“To the record stores, artists, labels, DJs, and journalists; we’re all in this together,” said the former White Stripe of his new appointment. “Show respect for the tangible music that you’ve dedicated your careers and lives to, and help it from becoming nothing more than disposable digital data.”
Record Store Day is this Saturday 20th April and you can view the full list of Record Store Day 2013 exclusives here or download a handy downloadable .pdf file.
