Sparklehorse

The project of singer/songwriter Mark Linkous, Sparklehorse's songs flitted between noisy rock, pastoral folk, psychedelic pop, and gently devastating ballads, but were always grounded in empathy. Linkous was an alumnus of the mid-'80s indie band the Dancing Hoods. A tenure in the Johnson Family (later known as Salt Chuck Mary) followed, as did stints sweeping chimneys and painting houses. He began working as Sparklehorse in 1995, honing his spooky, lo-fi roots pop in the studio located on his farm in Bremo Bluff, VA. After a demo made its way to the offices of Capitol Records, Linkous signed to the label and issued Sparklehorse's acclaimed debut, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, scoring an alternative radio hit with the single "Someday I Will Treat You Good."

In early 1996, after a Sparklehorse concert in London, Linkous nearly died when he passed out after accidentally mixing Valium with prescription antidepressants. He spent 14 hours unconscious on his hotel's bathroom floor, his legs pinned under the rest of his body, and the prolonged loss of blood circulation nearly left him unable to walk. Many months and surgeries later, he was literally back on his feet, and he released Sparklehorse's second album Good Morning Spider in 1998. Linkous then collaborated with Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, the Cardigans' Nina Persson, and other artists on 2001's radiant It's a Wonderful Life. In between that album and 2006's Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (which featured contributions from Waits and Danger Mouse), Linkous contributed songs to the soundtrack of the film Laurel Canyon and produced Daniel Johnston's 2003 album, Fear Yourself.

The next Sparklehorse project was truly an ambitious one: a multimedia sound and art gallery created in conjunction with Danger Mouse and filmmaker David Lynch called Dark Night of the Soul. The project's singers included James Mercer, Gruff Rhys, Jason Lytle, Julian Casablancas, Frank Black, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, Scott Spillane, and Lynch himself, whose photographs made up the 100-page accompanying book. Although slated to appear on the Capitol label in 2009, Dark Night of the Soul's release was delayed by legal issues. Cutting his losses, Linkous turned his attention to a collaboration with laptop artist Christian Fennesz. The two had previously recorded music together in 2007, and excerpts from those sessions were packaged together, forming the 2009 release In the Fishtank.

In early 2010, Linkous had moved to Hayesville, NC, and was reportedly nearing completion of a new Sparklehorse album. On March 6 of that year he was visiting friends in Knoxville, TN, when he died by suicide at age 47. Condolences poured in from artists including Patti Smith, Steve Albini, and Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips, with whom Linkous had collaborated on the Daniel Johnston tribute album Discovered Covered. An official release of Dark Night of the Soul arrived that July.

Tributes to the lasting impact of Sparklehorse's music continued into the 2010s, with John Parish and PJ Harvey issuing "Sorry for Your Loss" in 2018 and Danger Mouse sharing the previously unreleased track "Ninjarous" -- which also featured MF Doom and the Black Keys' Patrick Carney -- a year later. Also in 2019, the full-length documentary This Is Sparklehorse premiered; it was officially released in 2022.

Late in 2022, the first new Sparklehorse music in over a decade appeared in the form of the song "It Will Never Stop." The noise-laden rocker was from Bird Machine, the album Linkous had been working on at the time of his death. His brother Matt and sister-in-law Melissa had sifted through his archive since becoming the estate's administrators in 2012, and working with archival audio engineer Bryan Hoffa and producer Alan Weatherhead, they eventually uncovered Bird Machine's nearly finished songs. To complete the album, they drafted mixer Joel Hamilton and engineer Greg Calbi, while Grandaddy's Jason Lytle and Linkous' nephew Spencer provided additional vocals. Appearing on Anti Records in September 2023, Bird Machine spanned the staticky outbursts and fragile ballads at which Sparklehorse excelled.~ Jason Ankeny & Steve Leggett