Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Bright Eyes' seventh album, came out on Saddle Creek on January 25, 2005, the very same day as its acoustic twin, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Conor Oberst's Omaha outfit, with multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis and trumpet-and-piano man Nate Walcott in the fold, produced it themselves and pointed it the other way: this is the electronic half of the split, all glitchy beats and cold synthetic shimmer wrapped around Oberst's songs.

The double release was a gamble that paid off. "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)" and the Wide Awake single "Lua" took the top two slots on Billboard's Hot 100 Single Sales chart, and Digital Ash reached No. 15 on the American album chart and No. 43 in Britain, eventually selling 268,000 copies at home and picking up a European independent gold award in 2007. Dead Oceans reissued it on November 11, 2022, with a six-song companion EP.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.