A posthumous album by Sparklehorse is set to be released later this year — written by frontman Mark Linkous shortly before his death. Check out new single ‘Evening Star Supercharger’ below.
The album was written by the frontman in 2009, and was set to be his fifth studio album, following on from 2006’s ‘Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain’. Recorded alongside Steve Albini at his Static King music studio, work on the album came to a halt following the news of Linkous’ sudden death by suicide in March 2010. He was aged 47.
Now, over 13 years since his passing, the musician’s brother Matt and sister-in-law Melissa have revisited the album, and confirmed that they will be releasing it posthumously in his memory.
“It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever made”, said Matt on the decision to share the album. “It’s difficult making a choice about someone else’s art, even if you’ve known them all your life and worked with them, even if they were your brother and best friend. We had long conversations about not wanting to take this into a different direction. We wanted to bring out what was there.”
Upon revisiting the project, the two discovered that the album — titled ‘Bird Machine’ — was near completion, and thus enlisted help from trusted musicians to finish it. “It was as though the songs let you know”, explained Melissa. “Mark communicated these songs. We just did our best to transmit them.”
The help came from a team of musicians – including producer Alan Weatherhead, Joel Hamilton who mixed the record, and Greg Calbi who jointly mastered the final version and had worked with Sparklehorse in the past.
“It means so much to me, this last batch of beautiful stuff that my brother was putting together,” says Matt. “When I sit down and put on a pair of headphones, I’ll run it all the way through. Everything from ‘It Will Never Stop’ to ‘Evening Star Supercharger’ to ‘Stay’, that’s Mark just letting it out.”
Today (June 13), Melissa and Matt have also shared a single from the posthumous LP — ‘Evening Star Supercharger’. The track comes alongside lyrics, handwritten by the late frontman.
The album is set for release on September 8 via ANTI and can be pre-ordered here. Check out the new single below.
The ‘Bird Machine’ tracklist is:
1. It Will Never Stop
2. Kind Ghosts
3. Evening Star Supercharger
4. O Child
5. Falling Down
6. I Fucked It Up
7. Hello Lord 8. Daddy’s Gone
9. Chaos of the Universe
10. Listening to the Higsons
11. Everybody’s Gone to Sleep
12. Scull of Lucia
13. Blue
14. Stay
This isn’t the first time that a previously-unreleased song by Sparklehorse has been shared posthumously.
Back in December, Matt Linkous also released the previously unheard track ‘It Will Never Stop’ — which also serves as the opening track from the upcoming album. “Great care has been taken to archive and preserve Mark’s music,” Matt said at the time. “We are very thankful for Mark and the beauty he brought to this world.”
Elsewhere, back in 2018, both PJ Harvey and John Parish shared the song ‘Sorry For Your Loss’ in tribute to Linkous, while the following year Danger Mouse shared an unreleased track from his project with the late Sparklehorse frontman – 2010’s ‘Dark Night Of The Soul’.
The former had worked with Linkous on the 2001 album ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, while the latter teamed up with the musician for the track ‘Ninjarous’ in 2009, alongside rapper MF Doom and The Black Keys‘ Patrick Carney.