SPARKLEHORSE "Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of The Mountain"

Amazing what a day on the beach can do for your physical and mental state. I spent Sunday down at my old stomping grounds (what the fuck are stomping grounds?) and am a lovely hue of hairy crimson pink. It's rare you can get a sunburn that doesn't hurt. I'm not sure what vitamins the sun gives us, but I needed them, desperately. Island Beach State Park is better than I gave it credit for, abandoning it some 19 years ago, cursing the Jersey Shore all these years...

That leads us to Monday morning and how beautiful a new Sparklehorse record sounds after a relaxing day eating fried clams and collecting seashells. Sparklehorse could possibly be the most criminally underrated American band, if that's possible. Mark Linkous has had his hands in many pies over the years (hello Dancing Hoods?!!), but I think he'd be happy to know that it's his Sparklehorse recordings that secretly make music lovers gush, they quietly whisper his name when no one's around.

A disturbing or comforting trend and a certainly not new one: big labels farming out the under 100,000 sellers to the hippest leaf/branch on their tree. For example, Astralwerks will release "Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of The Mountain" on September 25 after several records for Capitol/EMI. EMI have already bumped over Ed Harcourt and others to the hot shit acoustic-electronic label, so why not I guess. Maybe more attention, maybe not. Either way, run out and grab Dreamt because it's gorgeous and ambitious. "Some Sweet Day" will make Jon Brion lovers go bonkers. So go. (Get that?)

SOME SWEET DAY