Sparklehorse - Gold Day EP
(EMI)
fakejazz has not shown enough love to Sparklehorse. I mean, come on... I was the only one who had It's A Wonderful Life placed at all on the top 10 of 2001... what's that about? Anyway, I love Sparklehorse... Mark Linkous could release whatever he wanted, and I'd still be all over it. Which brings us to this CD Single. The B-sides of Sparklehorse's singles are often of astounding quality. Take a song like "London," from the "Someday I Will Treat You Good" 7". Soooo good. And if my praise were not enough, here's a funny fact: it was so good, that it warranted it's own limited seven-inch. How about that? So, you can see how, when you buy a Sparklehorse single, you can go in expecting a lot.
As this is the single for "Gold Day," let's talk about "Gold Day." It's awesome. One of the prettiest pop songs of the year. If you want to know anymore about it, go read my review of the album. There... I've talked about "Gold Day."
What I really want to talk about are the three B-sides included here. They're fantastic, showing that Mark is not only a talented popster, folk-writer, and noise-maker, but also, amazingly, a purveyor of sweet atmospheric music. "Heloise," the first cut, is over before it starts: it's just over a minute of scraping sounds and washes of organ. Very pretty. The next song is also on It's a Wonderful Life, although only on the American version. It's "Devil's New," which, surprisingly, has come to be one of my favourite songs on the latest album. It's basically a melancholy piano line, mechanical beeping, and manipulated vocals (which are really the heart of the song), up until the last third of the song, when strings are added in a swell. Fantastic.
The best song, though, is the last. "Maxine" is a ten minute ambient soundscape, with sparse piano, drones, reverb heavy guitar, and static. It's completely unlike anything Mark has done before (unless you count bad attempts like "Little Bastard Choo Choo" and "Good Morning Spider"), and it's beautiful. Quite honestly, if Sparklehorse continue to release material of this caliber, they'll probably become even more dear to me than they already are.
So, my final thoughts on this single are: excellent. Just what I've come to expect. However, here's my caveat: if you aren't a fan of the band, or only dig them in passing, this isn't for you. Go on Audiogalaxy and download the songs. If you are a fan, I strongly suggest you pick this up.
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