Product Description

Even more inventive than the brilliant VIVADIXIE..., GOOD MORNING SPIDER is the sound of a man who quite literally diedand lived to tell about it. Before recording the album, Sparklehorse singer/songwriter Mark Linkous flatlined for two minutes in a London hospital, an experience reflected in the lyrics of the lullaby-like "Saint Mary" where he sings, "Blanket me, sweet nurse, and keep me from burnin'. I must get back to the woods, dear girls. I must get back to the woods".
True to his word, Linkous returns with startling urgency, taking his quirky rural aesthetic to further extremes, asevidenced on the aggressive distortion-filled album opener,"Pig", and in the hushed sleepiness of "All Night Home". The head 'horse briefly ventures into poppier territory with the catchy chorus of "Sick of Goodbyes", but most songs are far stranger creatures like the lush "Painbirds" and the fuzzed-out "Ghost of His Smile", which employ an eclectic array of arrangements and instrumentation. It's rare that an albumof such wide scope can hold itself together, but with GOOD MORNING SPIDER, Linkous has triumphantly crafted a cohesive sound-collage of both fierce vitality and astonishing beauty.

Track Listing

1. Pig
2. Painbirds
3. Saint Mary
4. Good Morning Spider
5. Sick Of Goodbyes
6. Box Of Stars (1)
7. Sunshine
8. Chaos Of The Galaxy/Happy Man
9. Hey Joe
10. Come On In
11. Maria's Little Elbows
12. Cruel Sun
13. All Night Home
14. Ghost Of His Smile
15. Hundreds Of Sparrows
16. Box Of Stars (2)
17. Junebug

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9298 in Music
• Released on: 1998-07-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
In between the release of 1995's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and this 1998 set, Sparklehorse mainman Mark Linkous almost died after curiosity compelled him to mix valium with antidepressants. A disposition to experimentation isn't always a good idea in life, but as far as making records goes, Linkous seems incapable of putting a foot wrong. Once again, this album oscillates between two poles. On one extreme, it's the clattering, melodic white noise that, on "Cruel Sun" and "Pig", recalls nothing so much as REM's classic Fables Of The Reconstruction. That'll do just fine--but the reason Sparklehorse are a band people get obsessive about rather than just love, is Virginia-raised Linkous's punch-drunk way with a fragile Southern ballad. "Come On In", "Maria's Little Elbows" and the concluding "Junebug" offer plenty of confirmation that no songwriter can make the abyss seem quite so homely. --Peter Paphides

Customer Reviews

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Buy this album. You'd be an idiot not to. And you don't look like an idiot!

Good morning
Alt-music one-man-band Sparklehorse veers between rock, punk and who-knows-what in "Good Morning Spider." In the sophomore album, Mark Linkous crafts a sonic extravaganza of brilliant music, strange and surreal and enticingly dark.

It starts off small in the opening minute of "Pig," then explodes into a rollicking staticky rocker. Following up are mournful laments like "Painbird" and "Sunshine," almost inaudible ballads "Saint Mary" and the funereal "Come On In," steady rock-outs like "Cruel Sun," and eerie panoramic sweeps "Good Morning Spider" and both halves of "Box of Stars." One of the strangest tracks is "Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man," which languishes in static for a few minutes before blossoming into a solid rock song.

Near-death experiences tend to change a person's life. In Linkous's case, it changed his music -- "Good Morning Spider" is warped by a near-death experience that almost killed him, and left him paralyzed for quite some time. So don't expect happy, perky music -- rather, Linkous seems to be exorcising his demons and experiences all in one swoop.

Like Neutral Milk Hotel, Sparklehorse makes the most of staticky guitars. It has a contemplative lo-fi sound, but is tinged with a few other things -- the bass, gravelly guitar and percussion are joined by violins, cello and organ, along with sweeps of static that give a surreal feel to this textured music. At times it's smooth, at times it's rough, but never ordinary.

His near-death experience shines through Linkous's songwriting, with lines like, "My bones wish to escape," the funeral tone of the children's-prayer-like "Come On In," and the wistful announcement that "All I want is to be a happy man." Even aside from the morbid beauty of these songs, his writing is evocative and entrancing: "A beautiful woman she rose/from the smoking waters of the lake/with a candle that burned in each palm..."

Rarely are so many beautiful songs linked together, and rarely is such raw emotion put into music. Sparklehorse's "Good Morning Spider" is a rare and treasured rock album, and deserves to be a classic.

Melancholy, atmospheric music
This is very atmospheric music, still rock-based but encompassing pop, ambience and folk. The overall mood is melancholic. The sound blends well through uptempo tracks like Cruel Sun or Pig, beautiful ballads like Saint Mary & Come On In, to the more innovative textures of Sunshine & Ghost Of His Smile. It's an uneven album, though and probably something of an acquired taste. A couple of real gems here merit its four stars.