Way back in 1995, this humble writer ran across this weird album by a "band" of sorts called Sparklehorse. It claimed the unwieldy-yet-poetic title Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, and about the only other thing I knew about it at the time was that it was written and recorded by a guy who was friends with Cracker/ex-Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery. Oh, and it had a creepy clown's head on the cover that haunts me to this day.

When I put it on the stereo, though, I was bowled over backwards. Out of utter obscurity -- although he'd brushed up against fame briefly in mid-'80s rockers the Dancing Hoods -- the man behind the Sparklehorse name, Mark Linkous, had managed to craft something totally new, at least to these indie-rock-addled ears. The songs melded Linkous's high-pitched Southern pseudo-drawl/whisper with raggedy, chiming guitars, lo-fi noise, and hints of electronic fuckery to make their own unique, inimitable sound. The lyrics were trippy little song-stories about melancholy homecoming queens, keyboards made of horses' teeth, milking cows, and fires. It was weird, it was unexpected, it was catchy as all hell, and it was incredible.

Seemingly surprised at the sudden attention he received ("Someday I Will Treat You Good," one of the more "rock" tracks on the album, was even a college radio hit for a while, and deservedly so), Linkous ambled out of his backwoods home studio, and Sparklehorse turned from one guy throwing songs into the wind to a full-fledged musical project. He toured the globe, nearly died in a much-publicized incident in England involving either booze and pills or pills and pills (depending on which account you read), played with big-timers like Radiohead, Son Volt, and Garbage, and released two more full-length albums (Good Morning Spider and It's a Wonderful Life), three EPs, and a pile of singles and compilation appearances. Wonderful Life, Linkous's 2001 release, saw him edging more towards the use of electronics in his songs, hanging out with Adrian Utley of Portishead and enthusing about the possibility of his next album being almost wholly electronic. Things got derailed every once in a while, but they always seemed to jump back on track.

And then he vanished. Linkous retreated back into the secluded corner of the country from which he'd come, and Sparklehorse seemed dead as a doornail, with a lot of fans (this writer included) wondering what had happened. Was it over? Was Linkous gone from music for good?

Thankfully, the answer's "no." Five years later, he's returned with a new album, Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, which comes across as the most fully-realized psychedelic rock album Sparklehorse has ever produced. It's strange and beautiful, like what Neutral Milk Hotel might've sounded like had Jeff Mangum been raised on George Jones, or Guided By Voices if Bob Pollard had had a longer attention span (and dropped the fake British accent).

Beyond that, though, it's probably the most song-oriented album Linkous has done as well. Tracks like the elegaic "Morning Hollow," the shaking rock of "Some Sweet Day," or the sunburned bliss of "Don't Take My Sunshine Away" aren't disjointed or thrown-together but rather carefully choreographed and full-sounding. The end result is staggering, both a step forwards to a more "rock" Sparklehorse and a step backwards to the lunatic genius of Vivadixie.

Heartened to discover that Linkous and Sparklehorse hadn't fallen off the face of the planet (well, not for good, anyway) but had come back full-force, Space City Rock tracked him down to talk about where the hell he's been and what he's doing now.