It's a friendly collaboration that turned out to be a match made in limbo. Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous and Gnarls Barkley's Danger Mouse wrote a set of comely, haunted songs for alt-rock heavies (Black Francis, Julian Casablancas, James Mercer, Wayne Coyne, Iggy Pop) to be sold with a coffee-table book of darkly ironic photos by director David Lynch (who also lent his keep-your-day-job warble to...

It hasn't stopped raining since the Rapture arrived in Los Angeles for two weeks in the studio with hip-hop producer Danger Mouse (Gorillaz, MF Doom) to record the follow-up to their 2003 breakthrough, the DFA-produced Echoes. This is sort of ironic, considering that the New York disco rockers' new album, due late this summer, is feeling some different weather.

"The early demos we've played for people, they've said it's a little more 'like sunshine,'" says drummer Vito...