Just heard that Mark Linkous, who wrote and recorded fragile, lo-fi head trips of songs under the name Sparklehorse for the last 15 years, took his own life over the weekend. It’s a great loss for fans of honest, ambitiously weird music; I’m selfishly sad that I only have one more Sparklehorse album to look forward to (his label has confirmed that Linkous was almost finished with a new record). While his 1990s work was beautifully grungy, Linkous really came into his own over the last decade, releasing two surefire masterpieces, 2001’s It’s A Wonderful Life and 2006’s Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, both of which smacked of a crackling satellite transmission from a musically gifted man on the moon.

I interviewed Linkous around the release of Dreamt …, and was blown away by his humility. When I shared that I’d been a fan of his for a long time, he thanked me with surprising earnestness. You can check it out here.