From A Basement On The Hill

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It’s impossible to divorce Elliott Smith’s <i>From a Basement on the Hill</i> from the album’s disastrou, tragic context. Nearly a year to the day before its 2004 release, Smith died from potentially self-inflicted stab wounds in his Los Angeles home. The three years since the release of <i>Figure 8</i> had been tumultuous for Smith, who was disappointed with the album’s sale, as well as what he saw as invasive meddling from his record label, DreamWork. He eventually split with his longtime manager, and had to walk away from sessions with producer Jon Brion, after Smith’s substance use disorder began interfering with their work. But as he continued to toil on new material with fellow musician David McConnell, inching toward completion, Smith got clean, giving up drugs and alcohol after his habits almost killed him—a turnaround that made his death, at the age of 34, all the more shocking. In the months that followed Smith’s death, Rob Schnapf—who’d produced <i>XO</i>, and who’d split with Smith in the early 2000s—worked to finish the album with a small coterie of friend. The result, <i>From a Basement on the Hill</i>, remains a brilliant if imperfect testament to Smith’s ideal version of pop music: Emotionally intense and bone-deep, but compulsive and beautiful just the same. Less polished and kaleidoscopic than <i>Figure 8</i>, these songs hit a bit harder, thanks to either their unguarded intimacy, or through Smith’s rock arrangements—easily his most driving since his days in Heatmiser. Documenting his struggles with addiction and demons at large, the opening track, “Coast to Coast,” hinges on the kind of slashing guitars epitomized by The Beatles (not to mention <i>OK Computer</i>-era Radiohead). His voice cresting over demented keyboards and plangent guitar, Smith tries to wean himself from his habits on the churning “Don’t Go Down.” But his music was rarely prettier than on the ghostly “A Fond Farewell” or the galloping “Memory Lane”—both sublime attempts to assuage woes of the past before they cut off the future. Across the album’s 15 song, Smith commits the battles of his life and death to tape. .

via Apple Music

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