Listen to Sparklehorse cover Robyn Hitchcock song ‘Listening to the Higsons’
Late indie musician Mark Linkous, best known as the leader of the band Sparklehorse, covered Robyn Hitchcock song ‘Listening to the Higsons’. Now, the track has finally been released.
The cover will appear on Linkous’ upcoming posthumous album with Sparklehorse, Bird Machine. The record, which compiles recordings made by the band throughout 2009 and 2010, will be released on September 8th.
‘Listening to the Higsons’ was originally featured on Hitchcock’s 1985 live album with his backing band The Egyptians, Gotta Let This Hen Out. The song references The Higsons, a British funk-punk band that broke up just a year after the song was released.
Linkous and the band initially cut their version of ‘Listening to the Higsons’ with engineer Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago during a series of 2009 sessions.
Bird Machine has been compiled by Linkous’ brother Matt and his sister-in-law Melissa. “It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” Matt Linkous explained in a statement. “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”.
“There’s the pain in his music but also hope and beauty,” Melissa Linkous adds. “Mark took what he had as experience and put it into song and poetry: trying to find peace, working to stay, the struggles of being human”.
Check out Sparklehorse’s cover of ‘Listening to the Higsons’ down below. Bird Machine is set for a September 8th release.
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