Mark Linkous had been working on a fifth Sparklehorse album when he died in 2010. Those songs, which have been in the care of Mark’s brother Matt and sister-in-law Melissa, are finally getting released and form the basis of new album Bird Machine which will be out September 13 via ANTI-.
Some of the songs were near completion, while others have subtle instrumentation added to them. “It was as though the songs let you know,” says Melissa. “Mark communicated these songs. We just did our best to transmit them.” Linkous was a known perfectionist which made the decision to finish the album tough. “It’s difficult making a choice about someone else’s art,” Matt says, “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.”
Steve Albini worked on the original sessions at Electrical Audio, and the album was finished by Alan Weatherhead, who produced ‘Bird Machine’ with Matt and Melissa, while Joel Hamilton mixed the record, and Greg Calbi mastered.
You can listen to “Evening Star Supercharger,” gorgeous and low key in that Sparklehorse way, and watch the video (which features Mark’s handwritten lyrics) below.
Bird Machine:
1. It Will Never Stop
2. Kind Ghosts
3. Evening Star Supercharger
4. O Child
5.Falling Down
6. I Fucked It Up
7. Hello Lord
8. Daddy’s Gone
9. Chaos of the Universe
10. Listening to the Higsons
11. Everybody’s Gone to Sleep
12. Scull of Lucia
13. Blue
14. Stay