Mark Linkous, frontman with Sparklehorse, has, according to a family statement, taken his own life.

If you aren’t familiar with Sparklehorse, you should take the time to investigate. It would be a fitting tribute.

The Sparklehorse MySpace is here.

Frustrated by too much of the same old same old, and inspired by childhood memories of listening to his dad play the White Album and Harvest, James Riggall decided to make some music of his own. The Broken Broadcast is an alias for that music; fractured, melancholic and blurry.

Soya Milk Sea, The Broken Broadcast’s debut mini-album, recorded in a friend’s basement, has just been released by Pilot Records and documents a burgeoning song-writing talent. By track four, Dead Leaves, Riggall has managed to inject an impressive sense of space into his music.  By track 5, Nurse Your Swollen Limbs, a sparsely strummed guitar, a repeated two-note piano refrain and an occasionally hit snare drum, you get the feeling that Riggall has begun to capture perfectly what he set out to achieve. His voice only adds to the slightly unsettling feel of the music, being at once desolately mournful and sweetly melodic.

By the end of the album, you’re wishing you had a recording studio and a string section on hand – if this album was orchestrated, it would be massive. As it stands, it is a remarkable debut. Imagine a stripped back early Grizzly Bear and you’re well on your way.

Soya Milk Sea is available now here.

The Broken Broadcast MySpace is here.

The Miserable Rich – The Cluny 2, Newcastle

Even with a sore throat, James de Malplaquet sings like Ella Fitzgerald. Hoarse and whispery in conversation between songs, The Miserable Rich singer’s voice never once falters while in full flight during this, the opening night of their current tour.

Despite the constant threat of vocal breakdown and the numbing cold of the venue, Cellist Will Calderbank and violinist Mike Siddell have to warm their hands against a radiator before taking to the stage, the band manage to give a run out to new single Somerhill and its b-side Bye, Bye Kitty, a cover of Iggy Pop’s Shades and a handful of old favourites from their 12 Ways To Count album including the sublime Boat Song.

What makes the Miserable Rich such an attractive proposition when playing live is that the strings aren’t there to simply augment their sound; they are the sound. Mostly, that’s a gorgeously lush sweeping sound, but Calderbank and Siddell aren’t afraid to ratchet up the sound. At times they are as close to a wall of sound as two instruments more at home in the orchestra pit can be.

Somerhill is available now through Humble Soul with an album to follow at the end of May.

Sore throat or no sore throat, James de Malplaquet has also croaked his way through the Suitcase Orchestra Q&A.

If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?

That’s going to be pretty tricky as the track I’m thinking of, Oliver, is on the new album and thus net yet available. I think you can probably get a preview of it live on YouTube though.

I’m choosing this one because it encapsulates a lot of what the band is about now. It was written by the group as a whole, and we all had a hand in it. It’s in an unusual time signature, and has fairly strange subject matter – and yet it’s extremely catchy and immediate. It also has both the tender and the raw sides of our output.

You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?

It is You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene

What was the last album you bought?

Marissa Nadler – Bird On The Water, which I learned about on 6Music R.I.P. Fittingly sad.

Tell us an interesting fact.

All firefighters and rescue teams in Chile are unpaid volunteers.

Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard of who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra.

There’s this husband and wife/brother-sister duo from the states.

Wear a lot of red and white……..

Oh, alright then. We played with a band called Vadoinmessico in London. We like them.

What film would you be a character in?

Ok. Since we’re in fantasy land now, can we please please be the characters in Withnail and I?

Reckon there’d be stiff competition for the parts of Withnail and Danny.

Somewhat less for I and Uncle Monty.

Personally, I’d be happiest dressing up lots and playing all the bit parts.

Recommend a book.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.

But of course.

Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?

Wilkins Micawber.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

What’s the worst record in your collection?

That would be one of Jim’s many Status Quo records.

Although I believe I have a copy of Love Is In The Air by a Spanish flamenco singer which really does need to be heard to be believed…….

What question should I always ask in a Q & A? And answer it please.

A lady at the student radio in Newcastle (hullo Laura!) asked us this question, so we’ll nick that.

Which band would YOU like to cover a song of YOURS, and which one?

Again, this is fantasy land, so let’s have the Pixies doing Pisshead please.

The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.

In 1994, Elliott Smith was joint lead-vocalist with forgotten indie rockers Heatmiser when he decided he had songs which were best recorded as solo material. Recorded in hissy lo-fi, on a four-track Roman Candle was born. With four unnamed songs and a distinct home made feel, Roman Candle contains song demos that we’re never given the full studio treatment.

Two further “acoustic” albums were to follow, marking out Smith at the vanguard of a minimalist, singer-songwriter movement where artistry and song-craft trumps studio gloss every time. His delicate songs, deftly picked on acoustic guitar, harmonica and occasional brushed percussion have been carefully and sympathetically remastered to lessen noise and fretboard squeaks without altering the original mix.

Smith would later be nominated for an Oscar for a song he contributed to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, adding two more studio albums before tragically committing suicide during the production of  From a Basement on the Hill, awash with substance abuse problems and depression.

Roman Candle, remains an Elliott Smith classic with trademark double-tracked vocals, virtuoso guitar and low-fi chic.

Simplicity is the key to success at the moment for First Aid Kit. On the face of it, there’s nothing especially remarkable on show here. Sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg play a very straightforward folk music – simple melodies; glorious harmonies, it’s comfortingly familiar stuff. And yet, there’s something of an air of greatness about them.

Partly, that’s due to their charm on stage but mostly it’s down to Johanna Söderberg’s glorious, soaring voice. Her handling of Fleet Foxes’ Tiger Mountain Peasant Song is immaculate and seemingly effortless.

Much more than that though is the feeling that this is only the very beginning. The sisters are impossibly young (they are still chaperoned by their father who acts as soundman during their tours) and can only get better. Already, they are able to do the simple things stunningly well, once they begin to develop further and start to push the boundaries of their music, who knows what they will be capable of.

That autoharp which Klara is clutching might only be the start.

More folk than tronic these days, the new Tunng album is a decidedly more pop orientated record than previous affairs. Don’t be surprised when opening track Hustle crops up on a mobile phone advert; such is its chirpy, skipping like a stone on the water charm.

This is very much a new Tunng – founding member Sam Genders has departed leaving Becky Jacobs to take on a more prominent vocal role. A period of inertia followed this seismic shift as the band struggled to redefine themselves but the shackles of the past are well and truly cast off by track 3 – Don’t Look Down Or Back – an anthemic song in both title and sound.

In fact, such is the confidence which spills out of every song on their fourth album that they could have just as easily titled the thing And Then We Saw The Light.

While many of the bleeps and squeaks of the earlier albums have been filtered out, none of the adventurousness and willingness to experiment has gone. October begins life as the very essence of sweet English folk, pivoting around a strummed chord which hangs in the air before the whole song turns into as freaky a slice of freak-folk as you’re ever likely to hear – all chopped up rhythms and looped vocals.

For those of you who miss the bleeps and squeaks, have patience; there are plenty of tracks on here that re-mixers won’t be able to resist getting their hands on. Expect a revival of the lost art of the ‘remix album’ before you can say ‘Hot Chip’.

And Then We Saw Land is available now on Full Time Hobby.

Tunng’s website is here.

Tunng’s video for Hustle is there ↓