In Stores Now: Dark Was the Night by Various Artists

Illustration "Fortitvdo" from Virtvtvm Vitiorvmq by Phillipe Galle, c. 1500

I'm not going to pretend to know anything about country blues guitarist Blind Willy Johnson. Since the recent release of Dark Was the Night, a charity compilation from the Red Hot organization named after Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", I've seen a lot of indie hipster types pretend like they've been listening to Blind Willy Johnson since way back in the day, and it's kind of gross. And pointless, too, since Dark Was the Night has very little to do with Johnson's song. Assembled by Bryce and Aaron Dessner, the guitarists from the National, the only explicit themes for the collection seem to be "darkness" and "updating traditional folk themes". Not too exciting when described in those words, but the comp succeeds by splitting the difference between cohesiveness and quality control.

Dark Was the Night is a 2-CD compilation, and it looks at first like a pot luck dinner where too many dishes show up. The dishes that seem to go together get put on the main table, and a second table is quickly set up for the mixed jumble of other stuff. The Dessners "first table" and "second table" actually end up working well, because the first disc has the cohesive, theme-based material, and the second disc has the better songs. The artists on the first CD of Dark Was the Night (entitled THIS DISC) seem to be those closest to the Dessner brothers. It makes sense that this material would come together best, since the curators of the collection had more involvement and input. The downside of this approach is that THIS DISC is a little monotonous (almost dour) in its commitment to the theme, but the songs are all fairly good. For me, the goal is to not have any tracks that I automatically skip, and Dark Was the Night passes that test. Excellent original contributions by the National, Bon Iver and Yeasayer are balanced by old-timey covers by Grizzly Bear My Brightest Diamond, and Feist & Ben Gibbard.

Dark Was the Night's second disc, known as THAT DISC, contains the odds and ends of the collected tracks. As can happen with these things, the second table at the pot luck is a random assortment, but it contains some of the most delicious contributions. In my opinion, the better songwriters are found represented here, with more original songs and better (less ambitious) cover choices. This disc (meaning THAT DISC) has excellent original contributions from Spoon, Arcade Fire, Beirut, and Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. The New Pornographers, Yo La Tengo, TV on the Radio's David Sitek, and Andrew Bird turn in excellent covers of songs that play to their strengths as well. The comp's themes are a little more dilute here, but the overall dark and folky feel persists in a less oppressive form.

As excellent as some of THAT DISC's contributions are, Dark Was the Night is best represented by the songs that capture the compilation's themes. Maybe the best of these is "Big Red Machine", a song co-written and performed by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) and the National's Aaron Dessner. It opens with a lush orchestral sound and a one-key morse-code piano riff reminiscent of the National's recent work. The thick, layered vocal by Vernon is all Bon Iver, though, providing a haunting feel to the song. Dark Was the Night is just the thing for people who are generally fans of this sort of thing.

"Big Red Machine" by Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner