Sparklehorse — Bird Machine (Anti-)

Photo by Danny Clinch

Bird Machine by Sparklehorse

When Sparklehorse released Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot in 1995, it felt like an outlier. At the time, during the height of Britpop, there weren’t many artists making slow-motion, country-influenced, lo-fi rock music like Mark Linkous. His aesthetic brought together a classic pop sensibility with a junkshop approach to instrumentation and timbre, where a song like “Chaos of the Galaxy / Happy Man” from second album Good Morning Spider literally sounded like tuning into a radio transmission. He collaborated with PJ Harvey and Tom Waits on It’s a Wonderful Life, and on the title track of fourth album Slept For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, he painfully evoked the syrup-thick sensation of depression. Though Linkous was candid about his mental-health struggles, when he took his own life in March 2010, it was still a shocking and tragic loss.

Bird Machine is technically the fifth Sparklehorse record, and was worked on by Linkous in the months leading up to his death. This posthumous release has been lovingly put together by Linkous’s brother, Matt, and his sister-in-law, Melissa — and they’ve done a fantastic job. It sounds just as a Sparklehorse album should, and is a surprisingly upbeat listening experience given it was recorded during Linkous’s final months. Among the 14 songs are some searingly fuzzy numbers, such as opener “It Will Never Stop,” “I Fucked It Up,” and “Listening to the Higsons,” a Robyn Hitchcock cover. There’s the sparklingly Beatles-esque “Daddy’s Gone,” the bright, Mellotron-laced “Evening Star Supercharger,” and “The Scull of Lucia” is reminiscent of Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” with a naïve, music-box feel to its melodies.

It’s in Bird Machine’s heavier moments, though, where the album really hits home — and the loss of a unique artist is most keenly felt. The harrowing “O Child” is so slow and sparse that it feels like it could fall apart at any moment, and the lengthy instrumental outro includes fractured, static-flecked dictaphone recordings. On “Everybody’s Gone to Sleep,” Linkous taps into a mellow Yo La Tengo vibe, his vocal sounding uncannily like Ira Kaplan. After the brief guitar instrumental “Blue,” “Stay” is a heartbreaking piano-driven closer, reassuring a loved one “It’s gonna get brighter,” yet sounding as if Linkous is already heading towards the light. And on standout “Kind Ghosts,” which belongs among Sparklehorse’s finest songs, the lyrics are all the more bittersweet given the context: “Where were you, my kind ghosts, when I needed you?” Let’s hope they were waiting for him on the other side.

Tim Clarke

Track of the day // Sparklehorse - Evening Star Supercharger

From the posthumous album Bird Machine, out on September 8th on ANTI- Records.

Quarters only, please [x <- prints here]

(done in procreate)

Sparklehorse ~Stay

Bird Machine, Sparklehorse (2023)

Though one can certainly always appreciate a tasteful resurrection of Linkous, this archival collection doesn’t get things quite right. His pretty, celestial side is understood but the rest isn’t messy or restless enough; instead offered is a series of rather conventionally-structured, curiously polished and largely tame tunes. Still, it makes me miss him.

Pick: ‘Kind Ghosts’

Sparklehorse | Bird Machine

Etichetta: ANTI Tracce: 14 – Durata: 43:48 Genere: Pop Rock Sito: marklinkous.com Voto: 7/10 C’è sempre qualcosa di sinistro negli album postumi, in particolare quando la vita dell’arista si è conclusa in maniera tragica come nel caso di Mark Linkous, suicida nel 2010. In questa occasione però, ascoltando il materiale su cui stava lavorando per il suo progetto Sparklehorse,  ci si accorge dello…

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Sparklehorse : Bird Machine

When singer/songwriter Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse took his own life back in March of 2010 it was both an absolute shock and sadly not surprising. Linkous struggled with depression and addiction and you heard it in his music. Still, you hope someone as talented and heart-on-sleeve as Linkous would find their way out of the deep, dark woods they found themselves in. At the time Linkous was…

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Comes out September 8

Folks talking about Game Devs dropping Unity or how it won't hurt small indie devs with under 200,000. Are missing the point.

Some of these Unity games can't change to another engine because they have years of code piled on top of each other at this point. aka POKEMON GO. They'd basically have to rebuild the game from scratch.

Not to mention Unity is mostly used by phone app games or Indie's that are lucky enough to get picked up by console. Indie games on Mobile easily pass 200,000 downloads. Temple Run 1 and 2 are in Unity, Crossy Road, Angry birds 1 and 2, and Hearthstone. All of these past 200,000 downloads years ago but aren't bringing in money now except hearthstone.

The Developers will do what happened to the first Angry birds app. They'll take it down, build it in a new engine for "HD", and add a shit ton of micro transactions. We are about to lose countless original versions of the OG pre lootbox mobile games.

We are also about to lose some of the biggest Indie games of the last decade. Among Us, Plague Inc., 7 Days to die, the original Slenderman game and it's sequel, I am Bread, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dream Daddy, Overcooked 1 & 2, Pathfinder online, Cup Head, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Oxygen Not Included, Bloons Tower Defense 6, Beat Saber, Subnautica, The Stanley Parable, Untitled Goose Game, Power Washing Simulator, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Phasmophobia

And the big one FUCKING HOLLOW KNIGHT. Silk song has already been pushed back out of this year specifically because it's being made by a team of like 3 people. It is so close to being finished and now they are being told they have to start over from scratch basically. Hollow Knight got over 200,000 downloads from being on playstation and was eventually put on Playstations subscription service. Every cent they made from hollow knight has gone back into making silk song. Which might now be delayed by multiple years and oh they are going to have to use some of that funds to pay unity now. Or find a way to get out of a contract with playstation. Because folks will keep downloading Hollow Knight for free and Unity will send the Hollow Knight team the bill.

oh and there's one more teeny tiny game made in Unity that you guys might not want to suddenly disappear. One with almost 3 years of monthly code updates, one with 139 million downloads to date, and 4.8 million monthly users.

Genshin. Guys Genshin Impact is made completely in Unity and that's not a game that can have it's code just copy and pasted to another engine.

Posthumous Sparklehorse Announces New Album Bird Machine for Sept 2023 Release

https://music.mxdwn.com/2023/06/13/news/posthumous-sparklehorse-announces-new-album-bird-machine-for-sept-2023-release/

adventures_in_bird_watching

1/4

"Insufferable." *[REDACTED]*

Picket Force Six under command of Admiral Ar'alani

Creating logos for Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet Ships. Springhawk and Grayshrike are now joining Vigilant.

Sparklehorse ~ Falling Down