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New Moon (2xCD)

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Elliott Smith

 
New Moon (2xCD)
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Surprisingly fresh mid ‘90s leftovers from the Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter.

  • We Say...

    Review by Ira Robbins

    In what has become a frighteningly familiar process for artists from Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley to 2Pac, Biggie Smalls and Jeff Buckley, death no longer necessarily means the end of a recording career. While labels used to content themselves with repackaging the RIP catalogue every which way, a new paradigm in which estates authorize the posthumous release of previously unheard material has extended active creative lives well beyond the grave. Freed of the mercantile logic that often guides art, artists who leave behind substantial quantities of presentably complete work can be well-served by the sharing of careful and considerate selections.

    Released three and a half years after Elliott Smith’s death, New Moon consists in the main of leftovers recorded with the same home-made intimacy as the solo records he was making at the time, specifically from 1994 to 1997. (As quoted in the liner notes, Smith didn’t deliberately record for his early albums, he simply culled the discs from what he had written and cut in the prior six-month period.) The two dozen tracks include only a handful previously released in any form: an early version (with different lyrics and a less acutely melodic performance) of the Oscar-nominated “Miss Misery” and, taken from a radio show that doesn’t sound noticeably different from the studio efforts, two Heatmiser songs done solo and a cover of Big Star’s “Thirteen.”

    “Talking to Mary” is an ethereal and disarming love song sowed with the seeds of self-destructive need; “Riot Coming,” also from ’95, is a sterling example of Smith’s off-kilter writing, delivered with mounting energy. “New Monkey,” a guitar-bass-drums electric effort dating from the sessions for Either/Or, has a diabolical hook and cutting lyrics: “Well, I go in the car / straight to the bar / Where my sweetie pours the beer / for the millions of fans ignoring the bands.” “Going Nowhere,” of the same provenance, strings a wistful view of a finished romance between comfortable nostalgia (“I felt like a kid of six or seventeen / I was off in some empty daydream”) and corrosive jealously (“the old records / sitting on the floor / the ones I can't put on anymore / He walked over to her like before”).

    The second half may not be as consistently strong, but it’s all well worth hearing, especially the racing “Big Decision” and “Almost Over,” which set skipping melodies against breakneck flatpicking, the pretty “New Disaster,” “Either/Or” and the two Heatmiser “covers.” It’s unlikely anyone has ever sung the word “fuck” in a gentler setting than this. Throughout, the multi-tracked singing, artfully simple arrangements and accomplished guitar playing uphold the standards Smith established in his lifetime: fans may be amazed how much was left behind that should by all rights have been on Smith’s albums at the time.

    It’s impossible to say if Smith’s songs add up to the man he was, but it’s hard not to envision the person whispering these sad, angry, bitter and melancholy lyrics as a shaky late-night insomniac frantically trying to make sense of his world and himself by letting it all seep out in torrents of aggression tempered into acoustic tenderness. As febrile in his compositional output as the melodiarrheal Bob Pollard, Smith spent his brief life breathing out winsomely tuneful folk-pop creations haunted by the brutalizing effects of ordinary experience on a fragile, overly sensitive psyche. Identifying with the protagonist of Smith’s songs is out of the question: imagining one’s own mundane version of hell is a more practical use for his music.

  • They Say...

    Review by Marisa Brown, All Music Guide

    Before he died in 2003, Elliott Smith released five albums (plus the posthumous From a Basement on the Hill), but he had dozens and dozens of songs recorded, either alone on a four track or with friends in various studio settings, that had never seen the light of day. Kill Rock Stars -- the label for which he made arguably two of his best records, 1995's Elliott Smith and 1997's Either/Or -- with help from the late singer's archivist, Larry Crane, collected a handful of these pieces, added extensive and often personal liner notes, and made them available to the public under the title New Moon. Written and recorded between 1994 and 1997, the 24 tracks on New Moon showcase Smith at his most instinctive and natural, when he uses hardly more than his (double-tracked) voice and his guitar. Though some of the songs here, especially the earlier ones, can be quite simple, even raw at times, there's a sad, clean sweetness that comes through despite the occasional bit of tape hiss, of tinny chords. In fact, much was done by the album's producers to maintain the integrity of Smith's original tracks, remixing them only when absolutely necessary (the only song that took vocal and instrumental elements from two different sessions is "New Disaster," and is clearly marked as such). This means that New Moon embodies an unadulterated Smith, singing and playing songs how he wanted to, carefully layering his voice and adding the occasional harmony, the second guitar, the subtle drum tap -- and with little of the full-band sound he moved into after he left KRS and went to a major label -- but it doesn't mean that the pieces sound incomplete or unprofessional; almost all them could've been included on one of Smith's albums, and in fact many of them were near to making the cut. "Looking Over My Shoulder" has a great hook, catchy in that monotonously melodic kind of way Smith knew how to do best. "You're always coming over with all of your friends and all their opinions I don't want to know," he sings, a slight anger in his voice, while "All Cleaned Out" reveals a kind of pity for his subject. There's a depth of emotion in New Moon, more than pure sadness, seen in his cover of Big Star's "Thirteen," recorded live in DJ Rob Jones's basement and played back later on air, the near indignation of "Georgia, Georgia," the fast picking on "Almost Over." Even the rendition of "Miss Misery" included here, the song that propelled him into the spotlight, has a lightness that doesn't exist in the final product. Instead of that hauntingly sad refrain, that last plea, "Do you miss me, miss misery like you say you do?" Smith hints at a different ending. "'Cause it's all right, some enchanted night I'll be with you," he sings. There's distant hope for redemption, for resolution here, something that was not present in the later version. In fact, that's the overall feeling that New Moon gives, a sense of opportunity, of possibility, of life within the bleak reality. The album portrays a more stable Smith and promises something brilliant to come, full of words and chords that will touch thousands, alluding to the future and the past, but mostly, in its own quiet way, screaming to show off the immense talents of one man and his songs.

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