Another great musician died yesterday (Saturday March 6th).
Mark Linkous, the driving force behind Sparklehorse committed suicide as confirmed in a statement by his family:
Mark Linkous began his music career in the 80's with Dancing Hoods but became widely known with his following project Sparklehorse, formed in 1995 with whom he released four albums ('Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot' 1995, 'Good Morning Spider' 1998, 'It's a Wonderful Life' 2001, 'Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain' 2006).
In the past year he recorded two albums in collaboration with other musicians. 'In the Fishtank' with Fennesz and 'Dark Night of the Soul ' with Danger Mouse and David Lynch . 'Dark Night of the Soul' was not released officially last year, because of a judicial dispute of Danger Mouse with the record company EMI (although it was leaked on the Internet), but the problem has been solved and it will find its way to record stores sometime this summer.
Linkous had produced albums by Daniel Johnston and Nina Persson (of Cardigans) and had also worked with PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, etc.
In 1996, and while Sparklehorse were touring in England with Radiohead, Mark Linkous came very close to death from an overdose of alcohol, valium and antidepressants and was almost left disabled since it took seven surgeries for the doctors to save his legs.
Mark Linkous, before he died, had almost finished his new album to be released by Anti-Records.
We had the opportunity to see Sparklehorse here in Greece in November 2006 in An Club.
Sparklehorse - Sick of Goodbyes
Sparklehorse live in Athens (9/11/2006)