Sparklehorse to release posthumous LP ‘Bird Machine’
Defunct American indie rock band Sparklehorse have dropped the first single from their long-delayed final album Bird Machine, ‘The Scull of Lucia’.
Sparklehorse was the main musical project by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous. Across two decades, the band released four studio albums and two EPs, plus a collaborative album with producer Danger Mouse and a collaborative EP with Austrian producer Fennesz.
The band ended when Linkous took his own life in 2010. In Linkous’ obituary printed in The New York Times, band manager Shelby Meade confirmed that Linkous had completed most of the work for a final studio album at the time of his death. It looks as though that material is now coming out as Bird Machine.
“From the very first seconds of ‘The Scull of Lucia,’ I was transported to a different time,” the album’s producer Joel Hamilton said in a press release. “The recipe is unmistakably Sparklehorse: The pace, the sounds, the overall texture of the voice.”
“Every sound seems to support the voice and the lyric, which was always at the core of Mark’s genius,” Hamilton added. “The weight of the world, floated on a rickety raft, across a sea of melancholy.”
Bird Machine was completed with the help of Linkous’ brother Matt and sister-in-law Melissa, plus some of Linkous’ former bandmates. Most of the album’s songs were recorded with Steve Albini in Chicago in the immediate months prior to Linkous’ death.
Listen to the audio of ‘The Scull of Lucia’ down below. Bird Machine is set for a September 8th release.
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