Sad news today—Mark Linkous, who usually recorded under the name Sparklehorse, has committed suicide at the age of 47.
Sparklehorse’s albums “Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot,” “Good Morning Spider,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” were college favorites with my pod of indie friends. Linkous mined territory somewhere in between Radiohead and the Eels, coming up with a kind of glitchy Appalachian misery that was way too dark to ever properly take off. Nonetheless, the man was considered a giant by those who knew.
Mark Linkous, a singer-songwriter whose music, released under the name Sparklehorse, was renowned in the indie-rock and alt-country worlds for its dark, allusive themes and fragile beauty, committed suicide on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 47.
He shot himself in the heart in an alley outside a friend’s home, said his manager, Shelby Meade. Lt. Greg Hoskins of the Knoxville Police Department confirmed that the police responded to a call at 1:20 p.m., and that Mr. Linkous was pronounced dead at the scene. According to his family, Mr. Linkous owned the gun that he used.
On four Sparklehorse albums released between 1995 and 2006, and in numerous collaborations, Mr. Linkous developed a style that sent sunny, Beatles-esque melodies through a filter of crackling, damaged folk-rock, and his songs were filled with entropic imagery. “Everything that’s made is made to decay,” he sang on Sparkehorse’s debut album, “Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot” (Capitol) in a whispery tenor that had echoes of coal-country folk.