After witnessing Gnarls Barkley’s playful pop-cultural press-shot roll-out and Dark Night Of The Soul’s rogue poster campaign, you couldn’t have been surprised to find Danger Mouse’s latest collab follow a similarly stealthy route. After all the sleuthing, though, we were left only with Broken Bells instrumental snippets; today James Mercer’s tender vocal bits come into focus. The grooved, acoustically rooted “The High Road” is the first full single from Mercer Mouse’s forthcoming LP, not so much a stretch on James’s stylings as a reframing: arcade game keyboard bloops strewn atop straight-up strums and Dangerous, mid-tempo bass, piano, backing vocals, etc. (Album instrumental credits: Mercer on vocals, guitars, bass; Burton on organ, drums, piano, synths and bass). Have a listen:

If you’re interested in a download, prepare your email address and enter it at brokenbells.com. (Previously, James and Danger joined forces on “Insane Lullaby” from DNOTS.)

Broken Bells is out 3/9 via Columbia. There are all sorts of pre-order options here. As for James’s other life-changing project … stay tuned.