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New Franz Collaboration Set For Release

added 31 August 2004 at 14.14

Fans can expect new Franz-shaped material a little earlier than expected – but not from the Glasgow four-piece. Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos has added guest vocals to a track on the new album from Handsome Boy Modeling School, a side project of uber-producer Dan The Automator.

Singer Kapranos has added vocals to lead single ‘The World's Gone Mad’ along with (bizarrely) reggae and dancehall legend Barrington Levy and rapper and Gorillaz co-conspirator Del Tha Funkee Homosapien.

"We have Del Tha Funkee Homosapien putting it down for the hip-hop,” Dan The Automator (real name Dan Nakamura ) told Rolling Stone, “And Barrington Levy holding it down for reggae and Alex from Franz Ferdinand doing the rock thing."

"The album's not about every kind of genre of music in one song - it's more about handsomely visiting different types of music."

For new album ‘White People’ (released November 9) Handsome Boy Modeling School's latest eclectic list of collaborators also includes Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, RZA, Jack Johnson, Cat Power, John Oates, De La Soul, the Deftones' Chino Moreno alongside long-term members Automator and Prince Paul.

"We wander around the globe being handsome, and we run into people and collaborate with them," says Nakamura. "So maybe we'll be in Morocco somewhere and run into Chino with the Deftones, and say, 'You know, he could use a little makeover.' Then we go back and try and design something. The more people we can make handsome, the easier it is on our own eyes."

In other Franz-related news, the fourpiece were confirmed as the winners of Best Breakthrough Video at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards beating the likes of New Found Glory, Kanye West and the White Stripes.

The tracklisting for is as follows:

1. ‘Intro’ feat. Father Guido Sarducci
2. ‘If It Wasn't for You’ feat. De La Soul
3. ‘Are You Down With It’ feat. Mike Patton
4. ‘The World's Gone Mad’ feat. Alex Kapranos, Del Tha Funky Homosapien and Barrington Levy
5. ‘Dating Game’ feat. Tim Meadows
6. ‘Breakdown’ feat. Jack Johnson
7. ‘It's Like That’ feat. Casual
8. ‘I Am Complete’ feat. The Hieroglyphics
9. ‘I've Been Thinkin' feat. Cat Power
10. ‘Rock and Roll (Could Never Hip-Hop Like This) Pt. 2’ feat. Mike Shinoda, Finesse, Jazzy Jay, Grand Wizard Theodore
11. ‘Knockers’ feat. Tim Meadows
12. ‘The Hours’ feat. Chino Moreno, El-P, Cage
13. ‘First... and Then’ feat. Dres
14. ‘A Day in the Life’ feat. The Mars Volta
15. ‘Good Hygiene’ feat. Tim Meadows
16. ‘Greatest Mistake’ feat. John Oates, Jamie Cullen, Paula Frazer
17. ‘The Runaway Song Pt. 2 (remix)’ feat. Kid Koala
18. ‘Outro’

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Jon Ford

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