Last fall, Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National assembled quite the roster of artists to come together and lay down exclusive tracks for a benefit compilation titled Dark Was The Night: Yo La Tengo, David Byrne, Grizzly Bear, The Arcade Fire, Kevin Drew, Sufjan Stevens, The National itself, and a whole slew of others.

Profits go towards the Red Hot Organization, a charity aimed at AIDS relief and awareness, so even though the two-disc album can be found online in the usual places, try to order it when it comes out on Feb. 17, or at least donate a bit. Since it's all obviously for a good cause, I won't flat-out pan any of the contributions, but here's a bit of a run-through the track list so you know which songs to hunt down and which to leave be.

-"Cello Song," a Nick Drake song performed by The Books and Jose Gonzalez, is easily one of the top three on here, and probably still would be on concept alone.

-Contrary to previous predictions of mine, it seems as if Bon Iver has broadened his musical palette quite a bit on "Brackett, WI." I'm not nearly as crazy about For Emma, Forever Ago as many folks I know, but this song at least locked me into giving his next album a good listen.

-Boy, I forgot how much I love The National. "So Far Around The Bend" might be the catchiest song they've put out yet. The backwards guitars, strings, and horns layered throughout have me counting down the days to some sort of album announcement from these guys. Unfortunately, I've been hearing 2010.

-I don't know what Sufjan Stevens has been smoking, but I still haven't figured out his aim in recording "You Are The Blood." It's bizarre as hell, even for him. (That 50 states idea is starting to sound pretty hilarious in hindsight.)

-Spoon and The Arcade Fire kick off the second disc, and they both blow it. It sounds like only half of the members of each band could be assembled to re-record an outtake from their previous albums. The latter group's track, "Lenin," is borderline unlistenable.

-Yo La Tengo's "Gentle Hour" is probably the second disc's highlight, and serves as a sweet reminder that the Hoboken trio still sounds better than most of the rookies working here.

-A Cat Power rendition of "Amazing Grace" wasn't really necessary, but I guess it's nice. Same goes for the Conor Oberst/Gillian Welch collaboration on the previously released "Lua".

Tracks by Grizzly Bear, Riceboy Sleeps, Dave Sitek and Kevin Drew are also worth tracking down, though nothing too groundbreaking. Full information can be found here: http://www.4ad.com/news/dark-was-the-ni/

-Kyle