Go to:
- Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995)
- Good Morning Spider (1998)
- Distorted Ghost EP (2000)
- It's a Wonderful Life (2001)
Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995)
7.5
Homecoming Queen / Weird Sisters / 850 Double Pumper Holley / Rainmaker / Spirit Ditch / Tears on Fresh Fruit / Saturday / Cow / Little Bastard Choo Choo / Hammering the Cramps / Most Beautiful Widow in Town / Heart of Darkness / Ballad of a Cold Lost Marble / Someday I Will Treat You Good / Sad & Beautiful World / Gasoline Horseys
When
Sparklehorse’s debut suddenly popped up out of nowhere in 1995 –
and distributed by a major! – the band’s leader (and only constant
member - making it more of a one man-project) Mark Linkous was often described
as an example of an outsider musician, some kind of unique, uncorrupted
voice that spent a few decades honing his songcraft under a rock and one day
was discovered by a headhunter looking for the genuine article. However,
Linkous had already lead a straightforward rock ‘n’ roll band
– The Dancing Hoods – since the mid-‘80’s and both
his production skills and rich lyrical imagery convinced the attentive listeners
that he was more of a well-read/educated man than “popular” belief
had it. While many of his songs are, sonically speaking, descendents of Neil
Young’s merger of rootsy impulses (from folk, country, …), the
detailed production that lends many of his songs this dusty and near-cinematic
atmosphere stresses his obsession with studio-possibilities. Like a trend-defying
and rootsified version of Grandaddy, Linkous has found/created a niche in
modern rock that’s completely his own. Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
(a title that was allegedly inspired by Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones),
by consequence, is chock-full of eerie background noises, voice manipulation,
answering machine messages, mysterious melodies and a layer of aural sand.
Similarly, his lyrics are much richer and more remarkable than you’d expect, with references to classics of Western literature, movies and popular music. While the opening song is the prize-winner, with obvious references to Shakespeare’s drama (“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse”) and Milton’s Paradise Lost (“What one grew straight and tall towards the sun, absorbing back down to dirt like a sponge”), there are additional references to French poet Baudelaire (“The flowers of evil” – “Gasoline Horseys”), Creedence Clearwater Revival (“There’s a bad moon on the rise” – “Weird Sisters”), Joseph Conrad, and I probably missed quite a few others. The striking metaphors and word-combinations persistently seem to hover towards a blend of surrealist and neo-gothic imagery: there’s the title “Gasoline Horseys,” a woman described as a “sea of air,” “metal teeth of carousels,” etc. While several pieces sound as if they’re the soundtrack to some dreamscape, with their mumbled lyrics, floating melodies and dream-like atmosphere, there are also quite some references to sleeping, dreaming, waking up, etc (and – on a more trivial note - animals too: horses, cows, dogs, crows, wolves, spiders, snakes). Now, why am I saying this? Is this a poetry collection with additional music, or is it to show I did my homework? Neither. It’s just that the lyrical part of the deal is so upfront, so wilfully stressed and so packed with significance (or a perversion of it) that you can’t ignore it or treat it as an uninteresting extra. Some of the songs, like “Homecoming Queen,” lead-off single “Spirit Ditch” and “Most Beautiful Widow in Town” are chilling and bare-boned narratives that succeed in combining a thoroughly modern and pastoral feel at the same time, The Band’s exploration of roots music taken into the modern age.
Other songs, like the pretty ballad “Saturday,” the countrified “Cow” (that also betrays an obvious Cracker-influence – no surprise, given that David Lowery produced half of this album, using the pseudonym David Charles) and several songs near the end of the album (“Heart of Darkness,” “Sad & Beautiful World”), are easier accessible, modern updates of the folksy ballads that saw the light of day a quarter of a century before this album. Not to be mistaken as an alt-country artist or anything, Linkous also proves he knows how to rock out more conventionally when he wants to: both “Rainmaker” and the excellent “Someday I Will Treat You Good” are extremely infectious – nearly anthemic – rockers with big hooks that are a far cry from the muted majority on the album. Again, not all of the examples are as successful (“Tears on Fresh Fruit” and “Hammering the Cramps” seems to rely more on tricks than good ideas), but they all go to show that it’s extremely difficult (and unnecessary) to give this album a definite label, certainly when there’s also stuff like “850 Double Pumper Holley” and “Ballad of a Cold Lost Marble” around, short pieces of noises and sounds that come about like Linkous’ declaration of love for the unique scores of David Lynch’s movies, where a near-nausea is created by both visual and aural nightmares. Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot would have even made more of an impact if it were a bit shorter, with especially the end of the album slumping down a bit, but regarded separately many of these songs are instantly loveable for their unusual inspiration. Linkous hadn’t painted his masterpiece yet with this album, but it sure proved him to be a full-fledged talent who, from Day One onwards, set out to travel his own course with an admirable determination.
Good Morning Spider (1998)
8.5
Pig / Painbirds / Saint Mary / Good Morning Spider / Sick of Goodbyes / Box of Stars (Part One) / Sunshine / Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man / Hey, Joe / Come on In / Maria’s Little Elbows / Cruel Sun / All Night Home / Ghost of His Smile / Hundreds of Sparrows / Box of Stars (Part Two) / Junebug
Early
’96: Sparklehorse is supporting the mighty Tindersticks during their
U.K. Tour, when one night, Linkous collapses after having taken a cocktail
of (allegedly) prescription drugs and a few alcoholic drinks. He lay 14 hours
in his hotel room with his legs underneath him. On the way to the hospital,
his heart actually stopped beating for an instant and his recovery took about
a year, half of which was spent in a wheelchair, and the other half on the
operation table. How’s that for motivation? Many people probably expected
the second album to be a war of attrition about his recovery process, but
that’s not the case. There are a few instances that Linkous seems to
refer to that near-fatal accident, but by and large, Good Morning Spider
is an immediately recognizable Sparklehorse album, just like Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
was: apparently disorganized, wide-ranging and inexplicably likeable, although
it might take several listens to get that far. Once again, Linkous
succeeds in turning potential breakthrough-material (“Sick of Goodbyes,”
“Happy Man,” “Painbirds”) into awkward music that
was never meant to reach more than a cult audience. From the abundance of
production gimmicks (Linkous – the sole producer – sure seems
to enjoy toying around with sounds), to the music itself – which sounds
as if Mercury Rev and Radiohead are roughly taken by Tom Waits and Neil Young
– Good Morning Spider is another adventurous trip through a
musical spectrum that never seems to reveal all of its secrets.
For an album that relies heavily on the same updated pastoral rock and folk as the previous album, Spider starts off shockingly nasty, as “Pig” is a merciless noise blast, nearly creepy in its fierceness and founded on mostly nonsensical vocals, although it’s hard to too see the line “I want a new body that’s strong, I’m a butchered cow” as Linkous coming to terms with his past. The polarization between the raw opener and “Painbirds” (probably a reference to Waits’ “Rainbirds,” from Swordfishtrombones) couldn’t be any bigger: driven by a metronome-precise rhythm and featuring the inclusion of vibraphone parts and a cornet solo, it’s the ideal link to the even more fragile (hell, the song embodies “fragility”) “Saint Mary,” a song so bare, naked and vulnerable (“Blanket me, sweet nurse, and keep me from burnin’”) you’re afraid to even listen to it, for fear of disrupting it. It goes to show that the album is off to a great start, and fortunately, the song sequence is better than on the previous album, as delicate and impressionistic songs wrapped up in unprotected arrangements are alternated by noisier, confident rock songs that crackle with energy. A good example of the latter is “Sick of Goodbyes,” a song Linkous had written with Cracker’s Lowery (it had also appeared on that band’s album Kerosene Hat) years before he recorded it himself. Whereas Cracker’s version sounds a bit more traditional and rootsy, this bouncier and slightly more piercing version is nearly as convincing. Also “Happy Man,” a song that rises out of two long minutes of radio static and one of the instances that you wish Linkous would’ve kept things less complicated and unnecessarily adorned. There’s nothing wrong with a melodic rock song, after all. “Cruel Sun” is a brief and silly noisefest (“There’s peaches in reaches, with leeches at heart”), but the Prize for Most Striking Contribution goes to the Casio-rock of “Ghost of His Smile,” a cousin of Grandaddy’s “AM 180”.
The ballads (or “quieter” tracks) are in the majority: once again, I could’ve lived without a few of them, but the best among them are simply superb, like “Sunshine,” which actually sounds as if you’re right beneath the surface of the water, calmly hovering between consciousness/unconsciousness, awareness/unawareness, being awake/asleep, as also the lyrics could be interpreted in several ways (“I opened my eyes and watched the sunshine, it had been out all night, to relax and unwind” as the moment when Linkous returned from the dead after having been in a coma?). Anyway, whatever the original intention, the result is grand. Further notable tracks are the cover version of Daniel Johnston’s “Hey Joe” that not only highlights the artist’s obsession with The Beatles but also is a touching call for a hopeful perspective on life that proves a ‘tiny’ song can often make more of an impact than three stacks of Marshall amplifiers and a bunch of skull-breaking power chords. Quite contrasting (in its repetition of “loneliness” and self-deprecating lines such as “I’ve really come to hate my body”), and an undisputed album highlight, is “Maria’s Little Albums,” which sounds frighteningly close to Yo La Tengo; while the stately sensual groove of “Hundreds of Sparrows” already points forward to “Brides of Neptune,” Linkous’ majestic collaboration with Cracker in 2002. I repeatedly wished that Linkous had kept himself in check a bit more, but the quality of the songs gathered here actually improves on the debut’s. Good Morning Spider is like cough syrup: a combination of bitter and sweet: its effects aren’t immediately noticeable, but when administered at the right time, it can become slowly addicting.
Distorted Ghost EP (2000)
7
Happy Man / Waiting for Nothing / Happy Place / My Yoke Is Heavy / Gasoline Horseys (Live) / Happy Pig (Live)
An
EP that situates itself nicely in between the slightly schizophrenic Good
Morning Spider and the surprisingly consistent third album, the Distorted
Ghost EP isn’t particularly revelatory, but does come as a nice
addition to Sparklehorse’s catalogue. Remember when I was complaining
in my previous review about how Linkous’ tendencies to tamper around
too much with some songs made them lose impact? Well, the very song I was
talking about – “Happy Man” – is included twice
here, and without 2+-minutes of unnecessary static. The first
version (“Memphis Version”), recorded with the semi-legendary
Eric Drew Feldman, gets to the point without much of a fuss and rocks with
a startlingly tough core, while the live version that closes the album even
adds fury to it, becoming a white-hot piece of incendiary rock you wouldn’t
presume he was capable of (if it weren’t for “Pig,” which
it refers to at the end (hence the title)). The other live track featured
here – “Gasoline Horseys” from Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
– is something entirely different: delicate and approximately what you’d
expect if you crossed Vic Chesnutt with Daniel Johnston, while Sofie Michalitsianos’
vocals are simply endearing (as they also were throughout the previous album
– for which I forgot to give her credit).
The remaining tracks are solo recordings, “made” by Linkous. Both “Waiting for Nothing” and “Happy Place” (a song he wrote with Cracker’s David Lowery, and that was previously recorded by Susanna Hoffs) seem to initiate the much more comfortable sounds of It’s a Wonderful Life, even though they’re not as impressive as the majority of the songs on that album. To give credit where it’s due, Linkous also includes another Daniel Johnston-song (with piano-sample from one of the master’s performances), “My Yoke Is Heavy,” which, appropriately, sounds like a strangled lullaby with nauseating multi-tracked vocals that are suddenly interrupted by metallic guitar chords. On the other hand, the fact that Linkous chose this particular song might also have something to do with the lyrics that would fit in nicely in The Little Book of Sparklehorse Poetry (“My voice is a little horse, galloping lost through the woods, calling your name”). Far from essential, but even further from redundant, the Distorted Ghost EP is a must-have for fans of the peculiar bard and perhaps an ideal first intriguing peek into his out of step cosmos. AND NOW WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GET UP AND WRITE A MASTER’S THESIS ABOUT THE EQUINE IMAGERY IN HIS CATALOGUE?
It's a Wonderful Life (2001)
8
It’s a Wonderful Life / Gold Day / Piano Fire / Sea of Teeth / Apple Bed / King of Nails / Eyepennies / Dog Door / More Yellow Birds / Little Fat Baby / Comfort Me / Babies on the Sun
Whereas
the two previous albums could lead you to reduce them to one half of a 90-minute
tape, because of their schizophrenia and unevenness, It’s a Wonderful
Life represents a radically different approach (although it might sound
like the same old crap to those who couldn’t stand it in the first place).
It’s a homogenous work, with very few stylistic shifts or abrasive moments
that distort the atmosphere built up by the preceding songs. On the one hand,
listening to an album with a smooth and logical flow is less frustrating (it
can become annoying to have to get up to skip one or more songs, right?),
but on the other hand, you could also argue that the highs and lows of Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
and Good Morning Spider were exactly that what made those albums
so imperfect but also thrilling and memorable. It all boils down to the preference
of the listener (yes, that’s you), but whatever option is preferred,
I think it’s safe to suppose that if you like the first (or first two)
songs on this album, you’re guaranteed to like the remainder as well.
It took me at least 15 listens to be able to separate a few songs from each
other, as the album is nearly bursting with sweet melodies, eclectic lyrical
imagery (and the horses are back, too), while the trademark sound of producer
Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, etc) is all over it. Just try
playing this album before or after Rev’s Deserter’s Songs.
Fridmann isn’t the only household collaborator, since also PJ Harvey, John Parish, The Cardigans’ Nina Persson and even Tom Waits add their two cents, and more. The opening title track treads familiar ground: while he employs a slow waltzing trance and the sound of needles on old 78rpm records, the familiar imagery (“I’m the only one who can ride that horse”) and skewed melodies of Linkous have made their comeback. The back-to-back “Gold Day” and “Piano Fire” are probably my favorite tracks here: while the subtly layered “Gold Day” (they use more different (retro) keyboards on this album than I thought existed) really takes off with that ethereal chorus – the strings, the angelic backing vocals by Persson – it’s the nearly exaggerated spring-mood that turns it into a winner, as it seems to contain both the lush and subtle cheesiness of orchestrated French ‘60’s pop (Françoise Hardy, Gainsbourg with Birkin, etc). The brief “Piano Fire” represents one of the few instances the album treads on ‘rock’ territory: once again, the song’s ‘stained’ with a layer of dust, but the chorus that comes through, as well as the contributions of Harvey, are simply excellent. During the subdued highlight “Apple Bed,” the importance Linkous adheres to his lyrics becomes pretty obvious once more, as bits of text (like “I wish I had a horse’s head, a tiger’s heart, an apple bed”) seem to enter and leave the picture like transmissions from outer space. “More Yellow Birds” and – to a lesser extent – also “Sea of Teeth” sound remarkably similar to Lambchop’s unusual take on country-soul, complete with faux-falsetto by Linkous and lyrics that rival Wagner’s for sheer absurdity (“Will my pony recognize my voice in hell? Will he still be blind or do they go by smell?”). However, more than anything else (perhaps), Linkous stays firmly rooted in a seemingly ageless blend of pop, roots and rock, vaguely familiar to the American gothic Mark Lanegan (in terms of atmosphere), but even more to the ambitious compositions of Brian Wilson or the explorative and aurally challenging music of bands like The Flaming Lips or even Radiohead. However, few people would go as far as to call this a “rock” album … the convincing “King of Nails” notwithstanding. From the strong opening, to the piano ballad of “Eyepennies” and the hypnotic “Comfort Me,” It’s a Wonderful Life is often a wonderful trip through Linkousland – a universe dependent on its own set of rules – and even though the uninspired collaboration with Tom Waits (what a friggin’ disappointment and a missed opportunity that was! DAMMIT!) disrupts the momentum of the excellent half hour that precedes it, the eerie ambiance and original interpretation of how contemporary rock can sound are arguments that are convincing enough (you don’t need another Phil Collins album, believe me). It’s a Wonderful Life lacks the sudden excitement of, say, the fury of “Pig” and the way in which it was followed by two completely different tracks, but its longer songs, tentative optimism and consistency are a god-given treat for those who like their album cosy and homogenous. Guess which one I prefer?
Note: A few minutes after the end of “Babies in the Sun,” a hidden track called “Morning Hollow” suddenly appears. It’s a slow dirge that resides in a shade of grey, just like the rest of the album (MY, MY!), and even better … it’s the ideal transition into that Dead Kennedys album you’ll crave for.
Read album reviews of similar or related artists: Camper van Beethoven - Cracker