6th November 1995. Radiohead are touring The Bends and are on the verge of bigger and better things. The latest stop is the Cambridge Corn Exchange and I’m in the crowded hall waiting for the show to start. The support act is an American Band called Sparklehorse and like most of the audience, I’ve never heard of them.

They play a mix of Lo-fi Americana and some of the numbers are so delicate, they almost disappear from view. The band seem to spend an age between songs, tuning and retuning their instruments, seemingly unaware that people are watching them. They play their songs, receive some polite applause and leave the stage. Throughout the set, the lead guy in the stetson has said almost nothing to the punters. It’s Mark Linkous. I start buying Sparklehorse albums.

The first purchase was Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. Some of the songs sounded like throwbacks to the early twentieth century, ranging from heartbreaking ballads to messed-up hard rockers. My favourite track is Spirit Ditch which is achingly beautiful but don’t ask me to explain what it’s about. Let’s say it’s whatever you want it to be. Check out the lyrics here:

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sparklehorse/spiritditch.html

In January 1997, during a European tour with Radiohead, Linkous collapsed in his hotel room and spent the next six months in treatment, most of it wheelchair-bound. He wrote a contemplative song about this near-death experience called Saint Mary which was on the next album Good Morning Spider, released in 1998. You can find out more about this song and what inspired it here:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-21-ca-19987-story.html

It’s A Wonderful Life, released in 2001, offered some gorgeous songs including the uplifting Little Fat Baby, which may or may not be about Jesus. In July 2003, I was in the audience when Sparklehorse struggled through their headline set at Northampton Roadmenders. Linkous spent much of the time on stage fighting a long, losing battle with an ancient, recalcitrant, steam-powered guitar amp. The audience was very patient, and helped a clearly vulnerable man to complete the show without any major mishaps.

They released Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain a few years later and, to this listener, it has an ‘end of days’ feel to it. I particularly like a track called Mountains which sounds a lot like early Neil Young in and among the layers of distortion and static bursts.

Nothing then until Dark Night of the Soul, a collaborative 2009-2010 venture between Linkous and producer Danger Mouse starring Iggy Pop, David Lynch (!), Wayne Coyne and other luminaries. Among songwriting contributions, Mark collaborated with Nina Persson (Cardigans) on a bittersweet song called Daddy’s Gone. By the time the album came out, Linkous had killed himself, as had another contributor and fellow tortured soul, Vic Chesnutt.

Which brings me to the stuff that Mark Linkous left behind. Some friends pulled together an album’s worth of songs based on a bunch of stuff discovered in 2017. Much of the source material came from studio sessions overseen by Steve Albini and includes a much better version of Daddy’s Gone. The resulting album was released last year. I had misgivings but found it surprisingly good and recognisably Sparklehorse. It has a more commercial feel to it, perhaps influenced by the musicians involved. Here’s a review:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sparklehorse-bird-machine/

Mark Linkous and Sparklehorse. Why not give them a listen?