Broken Bells Release Bonus Track With Deluxe Music-Box Package

To celebrate the release of their first album together, Broken Bells' Danger Mouse and James Mercer decided the occasion warranted a little something extra. While you can purchase regular old vinyl and CDs, they've also released the album in a format that actually tries to mimic an old-timey music box.

The deal is this: when you slide out the bookish-looking box, a light sensor triggers the box's bottom to start playing a piece of unreleased Broken Bells music while you inspect the contents inside. And for Mercer, it's safe to say he's pretty excited about it.

"It's just really cool," he tells Spinner. "I've never been in a band that had some cool premium packaging thing like that. Open it up and this music starts playing."

The track within is an eight-minute instrumental called 'The Overture' and even though a host of premium packaging is delegated to vinyl these days, Danger Mouse says that the idea behind the music box itself made it a perfect choice for CD collectors. "It's something you want to hold in your hand," Danger Mouse says. "We just thought of the idea doing the music box where you open the box and music plays. When we started putting it together, we got the size and everything else, then we realized you can't fit vinyl in it so we just put the CD in it. And we left it at that."

As the release got under way this week, Columbia Records sent out operatives to hide boxes in various locations across 10 cities. They posted pictures on Twitter of the hidden boxes and whoever found it first got to keep it. If you weren't among the lucky winners, the deluxe editions can also be ordered online for $39.99, and feature stickers, a poster, postcards and a 44-page booklet.

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