Latest Release
- FEB 19, 2024
- 3 Songs
- Ghosts of the Great Highway · 2003
- Ghosts of the Great Highway · 2003
- Admiral Fell Promises · 2010
- Benji · 2014
- Tiny Cities · 2005
- Ghosts of the Great Highway · 2003
- April · 2008
- Benji · 2014
- Ghosts of the Great Highway · 2003
- Ghosts of the Great Highway · 2003
Essential Albums
- Mark Kozelek’s work with The Album Leaf’s Jimmy Lavalle on Perils from the Sea gave the Sun Kil Moon leader (formerly of Red House Painters) a new outlook on lyric writing. Kozelek discovered that if he shifted his approach, he could deliver a conversational narrative as personal and as rambling as anything since Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac cataloged what was on their minds. In Kozelek’s case, he pays tribute to his family, whether it’s “Carissa” (a second cousin he barely knew who passed at age 35 in an accidental fire), his uncle who died on his birthday in an eerily similar fire, or his mom (“I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love”) and dad (“I Love My Dad”). He recounts details, big and small, and finds a way to thank Ivo Watts-Russell (the 4AD founder who discovered him in 1992) in a song about watching the Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same. Even Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (“Ben’s My Friend”) has a breezy-tune/serious-lyric written about him. There aren’t many artists who discover new voices in their songwriting after 20+ years, but Kozelek’s done it a few times.
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- Exquisite acoustic melancholy enlivened by plainspoken detail.
Appears On
- Donny McCaslin
More To Hear
- The band pick the 5 Best Songs on Apple Music.
About Sun Kil Moon
After dissolving his previous band Red House Painters, singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek resurfaced with Sun Kil Moon, refining and expanding the luminous acoustic balladry and harrowingly intimate lyricism that were the hallmarks of his career to date. He debuted Sun Kil Moon with 2002's Ghosts of the Great Highway, an extension of Red House Painters' melancholic dream pop sound. Following 2010's sparse yet exquisitely crafted Admiral Fell Promises, Kozelek's songwriting became much more direct, literal, and even humorous starting with 2012's Among the Leaves. The particularly confessional Benji, released in 2014, proved to be one of the most popular and critically acclaimed releases of Kozelek's entire career. He continued to explore a diary-like, self-referential songwriting style during the late 2010s, often recording under his own name.
- ORIGIN
- San Francisco, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 2002
- GENRE
- Rock