Sparklehorse – It’s A Wonderful Life
Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another — hearing color, say, or tasting sound. It’s also just about the only way to describe Sparklehorse’s new album without reaching for adjectives like “gossamer” or “crepuscular” (oh, go look that one up yourself, already).
The richly atmospheric It’s A Wonderful Life is indeed wonderful. And it sounds the way late-afternoon winter sunlight looks, or the way freshly-cut roses smell, or the way it would feel to try to tackle silk. Drowsy, delicate and precisely arranged, it evokes that early-morning half-awake state when you haven’t yet realized you’re still dreaming. Try to focus in too closely and it’s gone.
If that sounds like fodder for your next hallucinogenic adventure, you’re on the right track. The album’s atmospheric tones reveal main man Mark Linkous to be a fellow traveler of Flaming Lips. “You’ve got diamonds for eyes, it’s time for you to rise, and evaporate in the sun” — heck, that even sounds like it could have been a couplet on the Lips’ 1999 magnum opus The Soft Bulletin.
It’s no easier to explain just how this happened than it is to describe the results. The last Sparklehorse album, 1999’s Good Morning Spider, had its moments but was ultimately too scattershot to register. By contrast, It’s A Wonderful Life is fully realized and coherent, even with a distracting cast of big-name guests (Tom Waits, PJ Harvey and Cardigans chanteuse Nina Persson, among them). But nature boy Linkous’ sonic vision is so strong and single-minded, you’ll hardly notice the hired help.
Drop on in.