recording, now.

finishing all vocals, tonight. latest deadline for stupid first album - 2 weeks.

mark linkous.

i've tried to stop myself from saccharine public outpouring so far, what with the deluge of blogs and status updates that follow an event like this, or any other, and you can get sick of how quickly this tires. but fuck it i decided i want to pay tribute to mark linkous, as one of the most underrated songwriters of the last 15 years.
it's easy to write retrospectively about someone in sadness, as if things are suddenly put into perspective now that they are dead, looking for signifiers in lyrics, suddenly becoming interested in their lives because they are no longer here to answer for themselves.
mark linkous seemed a relatively private person, so i'm not going to go looking and dredging up personal details i didn't do whilst he was alive.
i would rather hail his music as some of the most genuinely great songwriting i have heard. it was a significant point in my life when i discovered vivadixies as a teenager, and that record and others still feel relevant to my life even now. he had a great ear for melody and composition, and still had a lot in him. the music is largely optimistic, very much so. but sometimes this kind is the most despairing.
it's affected me much more than i ever imagined. i'm glad to have seen him live.

here's a favourite.