From a Basement on the Hill

From a Basement on the Hill
Studio album by Elliott Smith
Released October 19, 2004
Recorded 2002-2003 in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles
Genre Indie rock
Length 57:54
Label ANTI-
86741CD
Producer Elliott Smith
Rob Schnapf
Joanna Bolme
Professional reviews

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Elliott Smith chronology
Figure 8
(2000)		 From a Basement on the Hill
(2004)		 New Moon
(2007)

From a Basement on the Hill is the sixth and final studio album by the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Released posthumously on October 19, 2004 by ANTI- Records in CD, double LP, and digital download, it peaked at #19 in the US and #41 in the UK.

The album was incomplete at the time of Smith's death. Smith's family hired his former producer Rob Schnapf and ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme to sort through and put the finishing touches on the batch of over 30 songs that were recorded for the album. Although Smith had stated many times that he wanted Basement to be a double CD album, contractual obligations with the singer's former label DreamWorks (now Interscope) prevented them from releasing a double album on an independent label. Thus, a 15 track album was assembled and released. Many of the songs Smith intended for the album remained unfinished, in some cases only lacking vocals. Metacritic gave the album an 88(universal acclaim).[1] This score reflects one of the 50 best-reviewed albums in the website's data-base.

Contents

Production

Following Smith's death, Rob Schnapf, producer of Smith's earlier albums Either/Or, XO and Figure 8, was hired to mix and produce the album, along with Smith's former girlfriend Joanna Bolme. David McConnell, although present throughout much of the actual recording process, save Smith's last year of working on the record, was not consulted during the mixing, nor was he asked for the extensive "three years' worth" of notes he and Smith had made while the album was being recorded.[4] The producer also noted that the track "Ostriches & Chirping," a short instrumental made from sampling and looping the noises made by a toy bird, had nothing to do with Smith and was something that McConnell had recorded by himself. McConnell said: "...don't ask me how this ended up on the record, I totally forgot I had put that on one of his reels."[5]

When asked what he believed the late Smith would think of the released version of the album, McConnell told Benjamin Nugent, "I don't think he would have delivered [that] record. The record he would have delivered would have had more songs, would have had different mixes and [been] a little more in-your-face."[4] Schnapf also expressed that the final result that he and Bolme had produced was not the album that Smith would have made, simply because Elliott was not around to finish the album. Schnapf also said that they did not add anything to the songs, and only mixed whatever had been recorded: "I would never presume to add anything. We didn't add anything."[6]

Track listing

All songs written by Elliott Smith except as noted.

  1. "Coast to Coast" – 5:33
  2. "Let's Get Lost" – 2:27
  3. "Pretty (Ugly Before)" – 4:45
  4. "Don't Go Down" – 4:34
  5. "Strung Out Again" – 3:12
  6. "A Fond Farewell" – 3:58
  7. "King's Crossing" – 4:57
  8. "Ostrich & Chirping" (David McConnell) – 0:33
  9. "Twilight" – 4:29
  10. "A Passing Feeling" – 3:32
  11. "The Last Hour" – 3:27
  12. "Shooting Star" – 6:01
  13. "Memory Lane" – 2:30
  14. "Little One" – 3:14
  15. "A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free" – 4:32

Track information

[7] It reflects the phrase being shouted at shows in which Smith performed the song.

Personnel

Outtakes, B-sides, non-album tracks

The following songs were known to have been written and in various stages of recording (with some fully completed) during the Basement era, but were ultimately not included on the 2004 album:

Officially released

Unofficially released

Unreleased

Noise songs

In later interviews, Smith spoke of experimenting with noise tracks. "Melodic Noise", "O So Slow", "The Assassin", and "Yay!" have leaked online.

Other From a Basement On the Hill-era tracks

References

  1. ^ a b c http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/smithelliott/fromabasementonthehill
  2. ^ a b http://www.metacritic.com/music/from-a-basement-on-the-hill/critic-reviews
  3. ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/14639/80550
  4. ^ a b "Elliott Smith Lives Again! From a Basement on the Hill V.2". http://www.confabulators.com/2005/elliott-smith-lives-again-from-a-basement-on-the-hill-v2. Retrieved 2006-04-21. 
  5. ^ McConnell, David (2004). "Thursday, December 9, 2004". See "News" section. http://www.davidmcconnell.net/index_original.html. Retrieved 2006-06-25. 
  6. ^ Blair, Elizabeth (October 15, 2004). "'From a Basement': Elliott Smith's Posthumous Gift". NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4109711. Retrieved 2006-04-28. 
  7. ^ Ben Nanamaker (2004-10-21). "Final album displays ambivalence". The Lantern. http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2004/10/21/Arts/Final.Album.Displays.Ambivalence-775864.shtml. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 
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