Good Morning Spider - Sparklehorse

Rating: 5/10
Sound Quality: 320 kb/s
Format: Mp3
Record Label: Parlophone
Year Released: 1998
Album Covers: Included
Pass: radiodada
Links: rapidshare

About Sparklehorse

Sparklehorse is a United States rock music group led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous, who records much of Sparklehorse's material in his home studio. Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Minor is a frequent collaborator.

Sparklehorse's first album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995), was a modest college radio success. In 1996, while touring Europe with Radiohead shortly after the album's release, Linkous overdosed on a combination of anti-depressants, Valium, alcohol, and heroin in a London hotel room. Unconscious and with his legs pinned beneath him for almost fourteen hours, the resulting potassium buildup caused his heart to stop for several minutes after his body was lifted up. The ensuing surgeries nearly caused him to lose both legs and left him wheelchair-bound for six months. Good Morning Spider (1998) was recorded following this incident. Critics have conjectured that Linkous's near death experience inspired the somber tone of the album, though Linkous has stated that much of the material on GMS was written prior. One song which did result from it is "St. Mary", which is dedicated to the nurses at the eponymous hospital in Paddington where Linkous recuperated.

2001 saw the release of It's a Wonderful Life, featuring appearances by Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Vic Chesnutt, Nina Persson and Dave Fridmann. Whereas much of Vivadixie... and Spider were recorded solely by Linkous in his "Static King" studio on his Virginia farm, Wonderful Life was more of a formal effort, largely recorded by Fridmann after Linkous was asked by his label to retain an outside producer for the project. On September 25, 2006, Sparklehorse released their fourth album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, collaborating with DJ Danger Mouse, Christian Fennesz, and Steven Drozd. This album featured the radio release "Don't Take My Sunshine Away" and a remastered version of "Shade And Honey", which Linkous originally wrote for Alessandro Nivola to sing in the 2003 movie Laurel Canyon, as well as a virtually unchanged re-release of "Morning Hollow," the bonus track from It's a Wonderful Life.