Yeah Yeah Yeah’s vocalist Karen O(born Karen Lee Orzolek) and multi-instrumentalist Danger Mouse(born Brian Joseph Burton) have released their debut recording together “Lux Prima,” today on BMG Records. This track is the first single off an upcoming collaborative album between the two artists, that is expected to be released soon.
“Lux Prima,” clocks in at over nine minutes, featuring an array of instrumentation from Danger Mouse including synths, strings, and drums, that are accentuated with a strong bass line. The song switches between drawn out string sections, to catchier melodies throughout its length.
“With ‘Lux Prima,’ we were really looking for a place rather than a sound,” Danger Mouse explained in a press release. “It was our first shared destination so we thought we’d take our time getting there. The song itself is a bit of a journey, but all the parts felt like they needed each other. So it became our blueprint in a sense. We wrote the album in deliberate isolation. Along the way asking ourselves lots of questions. We didn’t find many answers, but found it was more about the questions themselves.”
O delivers a strong vocal performance, with spacious sounds on the track, that are in contrast with her work with the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. A simple video accompanying the song follows a ray of light turning into a bright symbol as the track goes on.
“Lux Prima is the first song we wrote for the record,” O stated in a press release. “After making music for the past twenty years and embarking on making this record with Danger Mouse I knew a couple things: one was that the spirit of collaboration between us was going to be a pure one, and two was that the more I live the less is clear to me. When you create from a blurry place you can go places further than you’ve ever been. I think we both were excited to go far out.”
In addition to her extensive work the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s O has also embarked on a successful solo career, releasing her first solo album Crush Songs in 2014. The singer has also contributed to the film soundtracks for Where The Wild Things Are and Her. “The Moon Song,” which was O’s track off Her was nominated for a Grammy in 2014.
Earlier this year the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s gave a small update regarding an upcoming studio album, and confirmed that O was putting out new solo material. Later this year she was also part of the Sirius XM boycott regarding the Musing Modernization Act.
Danger Mouse has earned six Grammy’s for his work as a producer and as part of Gnarls Barkley with Cee Lo Green. His collaborations range across a wide variety of genres; including soul, R&B, hip hop and rock music. He has worked with artists such as The Black Keys, Adele and MF Doom in the past.
In 2017 the artist collaborated with Big Boi and Run the Jewels for the track “Chase Me.” This song was featured for the film Baby Driver.
Photo Credit: Brett Padelford
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