Elliott Smith ‘From a Basement on the Hill’ (Domino)

We all know it ends badly. This guy stabbed himself in the heart. Twice. Safe to say he didn’t really want to stay around. ‘From a Basement on a Hill’, released posthumously, contains enough allusions to suicide to have surely made his musicians, producer and record company suspicious, but I guess it’s easy with hindsight.

“Give me a reason not to do it,” he pleads. “Burning every bridge that I cross, to find some beautiful place to get lost”, “I take my own insides out”, “just make it over” – lyrics that take little interpretation. And then there’s the song titles: ‘A Fond Farewell’, ‘Twilight’, ‘The Last Hour’. Suffice to say this is not a record full of the joys of spring, but it is startling.

It is full of jagged changes of pace and intriguing instrumentation, conjuring a bleakly beautiful landscape. This is a windswept moor of an album, but on closer inspection there’s patches of heather, colour and heady scents. Musically this makes for a pop sensibility that mocks the lyrical content.

Opener ‘Coast to Coast’ stumbles into action like an old shire horse before revealing its awkward yet strangely sing-a-long melody. ‘Let’s Get Lost’ relies on intricate guitar picking to portray its desolate charm before ‘Pretty (Ugly Before)’ is the most radio-friendly song about depression/addiction/self-loathing – take your pick – that I have ever heard.

‘Don’t Go Down’ swirls angrily in the depths – a perfect storm of a song, then ‘A Fond Farewell’ and ‘King’s Crossing’ retain the sense of frustration and anger that drives many of the songs. ‘A Passing Feeling’ twangs, ‘The Last Hour’ pangs.

There are fifteen tracks on ‘From a Basement…’ which may make it a little hard going. It is well nigh impossible to put Smith’s fate out of your mind, which makes the quality, depth and richness of the songs all the more remarkable. I asked earlier if any of his team were suspicious of his motives when they first saw the lyric sheet, until it dawns on me that he wrote, performed and produced the album all by himself. A completely solo project, akin to Nick Drake’s final tragic paean, ‘Pink Moon’. More clues? Does it matter? This album is a gorgeous and powerful an epitaph anyway.

words: Roger Hadwen

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