Given that we tend to celebrate life only after a death and that there’s a little of the vampire in all of us, it’s not too surprising that the concept of an artist’s career ending with their demise makes no good sense to the music industry. Tupac Shakur provides the most striking example of posthumous prolificacy, but the vaults of the talented and the tragically dead are regularly plundered to keep consumers/carrion feeders happy - and buying records.
It’s hard, then, not to feel queasily complicit in a kind of grave robbing with the release of these 15 tracks from Elliott Smith, who took his own life a year ago almost to the day. He left behind a large number of songs, which he was sifting through for a follow-up to 2000’s "Figure 8". The cuts here were chosen by Smith’s divorced parents and their partners, which throws up an awkward question: does anyone have the right to release songs not approved or selected by Smith himself – songs possibly not even finished?
Issues of artistic necrophilia aside, “From a Basement On A Hill” provides no more clues to Smith’s state of mind than his other records. It’s almost impossible to listen, however, without scouring his lyrics for a hint of the tragedy that was to come. Hindsight is a trap, but signposts seem to be everywhere, not only in the titles - "Strung Out Again", "A Fond Farewell", "Last Hour" – but in the harrowing sadness of Smith’s double-tracked vocals. His voice has always been devastatingly bereft, of course, but the stripped-down nature of the songs makes it resonate even more deeply. Smith sounds like a man who no longer has the strength to hope.
There’s little here that fans won’t recognise. The soft, slightly folksy, wounded sweetness that was Smith’s trademark, contrasted with his beloved, post-grunge riffing and plush, Big Star-styled chords. The fragile charms of George Harrison and Simon & Garfunkel are everywhere, but the heavy “Strung Out Again” suggests Bowie fronting “Bends”-era Radiohead and “King’s Crossing” – with its talk of a skinny Santa whose speech is slurred - affects Flaming Lips’ psychedelia but takes it somewhere far darker and more disturbing.
“From A Basement…” is a fine collection of songs from an immensely talented, tragically lost soul. It’s right that we miss him so much.
