A posthumous Sparklehorse album has been announced, marking the first full-length album of new music since songwriter Mark Linkous died by suicide in 2010. Bird Machine arrives September 8 via Anti-. The 14-track collection includes the single “It Will Never Stop”, which Linkous’ younger brother Matt released last December. Today, Matt Linkous has released another song, “Evening Star Supercharger”, along with the album announcement. See below.
“Evening Star Supercharger has an upbeat instrumental and tone accompanied by disturbing lyrics. From being “gored from matadorin” to “angels dead drunk in the snow”, this is not a wholesome song. The first verse literally ends with the protagonist slowly bleeding after an accident with a train. There are some adult themes in “Evening Star Supercharger” as well. “Peace without pill, gun or needle or prayer appear” entails ideas of suicide and drug use. The song ends with “Even, though she’s dying getting larger to be in babies mothers and fathers”, possibly alluding to death and rebirth.
Matt Linkous has spent the past several years overseeing his late brother’s estate and archiving his recordings. The music on Bird Machine was originally meant to appear on the fifth Sparklehorse LP, at first slated for 2009. Mark Linkous recorded the tracks with Steve Albini in Chicago, as well as with his 1968 Flickinger mixing console at his own Static King studio. Mark Linkous had recorded most of the album.
Years after Mark Linkous’ death, Matt and Mark’s sister-in-law Melissa began searching through boxes of tapes to piece together Bird Machine. “It was as though the songs let you know”, Melissa commented “Mark communicated these songs. We just did our best to transmit them”. Many of the songs were near completion while others received slight additions by producer Alan Weatherhead. Weatherhead co-produced with Matt and Melissa, mixer Joel Hamilton, and engineer Greg Calbi, who had worked with Sparklehorse in the past.
“It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” Matt said. “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.”
He added: “It means so much to me, this last batch of beautiful stuff that my brother was putting together. 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.”
Bird Machine:
01 It Will Never Stop
02 Kind Ghosts
03 Evening Star Supercharger
04 O Child
05 Falling Down
06 I Fucked It Up
07 Hello Lord
08 Daddy’s Gone
09 Chaos of the Universe
10 Listening to the Higsons
11 Everybody’s Gone to Sleep
12 Scull of Lucia
13 Blue
14 Stay
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