New posthumous Sparklehorse album announced
After musical mastermind Mark Linkous passed away in 2010, it looked like the days of Sparklehorse were a thing of the past. Now, following a few teasers, fans are going to be hearing Linkous’ voice all over again with a new posthumous album.
With the help of his brother Matt, a new Sparklehorse record entitled Bird Machine is set for release later this year. The album will be a 14-song journey through some of the final recordings that Linkous made with producer Steve Albini.
The idea to assemble the album started with the release of an unreleased song entitled ‘It Will Never Stop’, which was released back in December of 2022. Along with the announcement of the new album, Matt Linkous has also released a new song from the project, ‘Evening Star Supercharger’.
This will be the first set of songs since Linkous died by his own hand in 2010. At the time of his passing, the album was in its production stages, with Linkous writing out the title of the album and the tracklisting before his demise.
Matt Linkous went on to say how daunting a task it was compiling every piece of the record, telling Pitchfork, “It’s difficult making a choice about someone else’s art, even if you’ve known them all your life. We had long conversations about not wanting to take this into a different direction. We wanted to bring out what was there”.
Mark’s sister-in-law, Melissa, also assisted in bringing the tracks together through various boxes of tapes that were still unreleased. Melissa went on to say that Mark’s spirit was still in the songs, saying, “It was as though the songs let you know. Mark communicated these songs. We just did our best to transmit them”.
Despite the trepidation, Matt reflected positively on the direction they took the unreleased songs, continuing, “It means so much to me, this last batch of beautiful stuff that my brother was putting together. Everything from ‘It Will Never Stop’ to ‘Evening Star Supercharger’ to ‘Stay,’ that’s Mark just letting it out”.
Bird Machine will be released on September 8th through Anti-.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.