The storm is blowing back out to sea and now we begin the process of clearing the wreckage and moving ahead, stronger for the experience and thankful for what has been spared. What am I on about? That's my literary way of saying it's time to return to my daily writing responsibilities, among them this column dedicated to helping you spend your money wisely.
Elliott Smith
Roman Candle
From A Basement On The Hill
We have a pair of re-issues from the estate of Elliott Smith this week. Sadly, these two albums represent the first and last albums of his career- well, in a sense. Basement was the album he was working on at the time of his death. It was released a year afterward and not in the manner he likely would have presented it. There was also New Moon, which was more a rarities collection than an album proper. Depending on how technical you want to be, these two albums do have something of a bookend relationship to one another.
From a Basement is being released in the same form it was initially released in. The only change to it is the label home. All of Elliott's 'indie' albums are now being released through Kill Rock Stars.
Roman Candle is the interesting and controversial release. This is the ultimate DIY record. It was recorded, roughly, on lo-fi equipment and mixed roughly. Roman Candle is favored by many Smith fans along with the self-titled follow up who prefer Smith's stripped sound to the more ornate records he'd later make. The album has been remastered by Larry Crane, the archivist of the Smith estate, and there will be some who won't welcome this tinkering at all.
“The intention that I had was to make the album more listenable," Crane said. "I felt that a lot of the guitar “squeaks” were jarring and very loud, and that many of the hard consonants and “S” sounds were jarring and scratchy sounding. I felt by reducing these noises that the music would become more inviting and the sound would serve the songs better. When I went to Roger Seibel's SAE Mastering, he proceeded to equalize the tracks a small amount and to make the volume slightly louder. We never tried to make this CD as loud as current, over-limited trends, but just to match the volume of the rest of Elliott’s KRS catalog in a graceful way. Please note that none of this album is “remixed” from the master tapes - it is still composed of the mixes Elliott created himself.”
Article comments
1 - JC Mosquito
I saw Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide on the list - I remember being deeply into that album for about 3 months when it first came out - then I threw it away. It wasn't that I got sick of it - something just ticked me off about it one day and that was the end. Never happened before or since. Go fig.
2 - Josh Hathaway
That's funny, JC. I don't know if I've ever thrown an album away but I've had the urge a time or two.
I just got the remastered Roman Candle.
3 - JC Mosquito
When I was a kid, I had a friend whose house backed onto the park area of a seniors' development. He threw 3 or 4 copies of Deep Purple's Machine Head over the bushes (I always wondered what the old folks made if it) - and that's because he was sick of it. Every few days someone would bring a copy of it over and say, "Let's listen to Smoke On the Water!"
Ah...... my childhood, remembered.