Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous had the rare but very rock and roll feat to have “died twice”, the first time in 1996 when his heart stopped beating for a few minutes following a drug overdose. That he returned and gave us one of the most beautifully fragile records ever recorded, ‘Good Morning Spider‘ was both a personal blessing and a gift to everyone else, albeit the sombre tone perhaps reflecting his experiences. Sadly Linkous committed suicide in 2010 but left a legacy behind of tracks such as ‘Junebug’ with its naturalistic evocative imagery: “Your cousins… they’re gods to the seas. The March afternoons. The sun and the moon.”
Tag: Sparklehorse
Ady Johnson “London Songs” (Independent, 2018)
It isn’t often that a record reminds the listener of Ray Davies, Mark Linkous and Tom Waits, as this one does. It has the lyrical sensibility of Davies, the clatter and oomph of Waits at his most extravagant and it has the shifts in tone, the juxtaposition of the abrasive and the beautiful as mastered by Sparklehorse. This eclecticism raises it above the usual level, enabling him to use bold swipes like the way the brass slashes across ‘Problems of Your Own’, changing the arc of the song. And how many are brave enough to use the bullfrog rumble of the tuba as Johnson does on ‘Put the World on Standby.’ Continue reading “Ady Johnson “London Songs” (Independent, 2018)”