Musical favorites Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse have teamed up to create a massive collaborative album, featuring guest spots by members of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Super Furry Animals, Grandaddy, The Strokes, The Pixies, The Cardigans, Neutral Milk Hotel, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, Iggy Pop, and director David Lynch. It is evident by listening to the album that each guest musician had a hand in helping craft their track, making for an eclectic mix of sounds and moods, while managing to remain mostly cohesive.

Unfortunately, the impressive roster of talent made for quite the legal battle over rights to release such a project. Just over a year ago, this album was released as a full stream on NPR’s website, and mp3’s of the album were available at various places, if you knew where to look. It took until now for the legal debate over producer Danger Mouse’s contractual obligations to EMI to be resolved, and the album will be released in physical format on July 13, 2010.

There are several variations of the album that will be made available for purchase. You can get the 2 disc LP set, the CD version, or the deluxe edition which includes: 2xLPs, CD, instrumental CD, poster, lobby cards and a 48-page 12″x12″ booklet in a box. The 48 page booklet features photography by legendary director David Lynch; images created to accompany the music.

But the album release isn’t the only visual / audio feast that this project has for you to enjoy. Masters of interactive flash-based sites WE FAIL have created a unique website for the project. The website is a gritty hand-made popup book featuring imagery and audio from the release. The navigation of the website is controlled by clicking and dragging around the scenes, and pulling arrows to flip the pieces of the scenes to reveal new imagery.

It isn’t very often that such a unique and interesting project is created, and it is great that this can finally have a proper release.