It's one of those mornings where you still don't want to acknowledge it happened, but it did: Mark Linkous, better known for performing under the Sparklehorse moniker, committed suicide on Saturday afternoon. While the announcement came later Saturday night about both the death and its cause, details were still sparse until later in the day on Sunday, when the New York Times got details from Linkous's manager:

He shot himself in the heart in an alley outside a friend's home, said his manager, Shelby Meade. Lt. Greg Hoskins of the Knoxville Police Department confirmed that the police responded to a call at 1:20 p.m., and that Mr. Linkous was pronounced dead at the scene. According to his family, Mr. Linkous owned the gun that he used.

And yes, that final fact just makes this all the more sad, especially as Linkous was known to suffer from depression, a theme that was spread throughout his lyrics. As friends and family continue to mourn his death, the music community has come out to pay their respects, including Radiohead's Colin Greenwood:

I was very sad to hear the news that Mark Linkous has died. He and his band toured with us in Europe, at the start of OK Computer, and they were great every night. His first two records were very important to me, and I carried his music from the tour into my life, and my friends' lives too. He was softly spoken, with an Old South courtesy I hadn't heard before: he introduced me to Daniel Johnston's music, and the West Virginian writing of Pinckney Benedict. Mark wrote and played some beautiful music, and we're lucky to have it. Rest in Peace.

It's a fitting tribute to be passed around this morning, especially when you consider the context: after trying (and failing) to hit it big with his first band, Dancing Hoods, Linkous released his first album under the Sparklehorse name, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, in 1995, and the record quickly came to the attention of Greenwood and company, leading to an opening slot on Radiohead's 1996 tour. While the tour gave him a large amount of exposure that he didn't find with his first band, it also led to Linkous's much-publicized overdose due to consumption of alcohol, valium, and antidepressants, during which he lost consciousness for 14 hours.

While you can expect many of Linkous's famous friends to chime in over the next few days as well, it's not a stretch to say that, like us, they still don't even know what to say. They could talk about whether they saw it coming, whether they hope he's at peace now, their experiences working with someone so, so talented, or maybe even the last conversation they had with him. What they'll all mention though, is this: that we lost an incredible talent, one that attempted to battle his demons through the power of art and songwriting, that he bared his soul for us publicly, and that he personally touched anyone that has ever listened to his music in a way very few others can.