Elliott Smith:New Moon

By: Dennis Cook

As a rule, it’s unwise to make the dead dance for the living’s amusement, but all rules have exceptions if you look hard enough. Push play and a stubbly ghost in a hoodie shuffles into the room. The shy rush of his softly textured voice is what first breaks your heart. Then the melodies knock you off your feet, seeming so simple at first but ultimately revealing the bardic genius that made Elliott Smith an icon, a phantom confidant and perhaps even a specter in the corner when he was alive.

For all the undeniable intimacy of Smith’s songs there’s always a sense of remove, a degree of distance that fuels his observations. Nearly four years on from his brutal death, New Moon (Kill Rock Stars) rises, and that distance is stronger than ever. On the surface, this is an odds and sods assortment of alternate takes and leftovers, but, so lovingly prepared and judiciously edited is New Moon that one is forced to welcome it, if somewhat begrudgingly. Grave robbing of this sort has sullied the legacies of Jeff Buckley, Gram Parsons and other lost-too-soon beloved musicians. By avoiding filler and playing to the cult instincts of Smith’s fans this set works as a legitimate extension of his catalog.

Drawn largely from the Either/Or sessions and sticking exclusively to Smith’s pre-major label period, this two-disc release offers 24 glimpses at what we lost that fateful October day when a knife pierced his heart. While a touch morbid to bring it up there’s a poetic truth his demise casts over his work. You can’t put New Moon on and not think of it. That said, there’s a great deal of life here.

One hears Smith forming his solo identity after leaving the band Heatmiser (this collection includes two solo versions of Heatmiser tunes). No one crawls inside the simultaneous euphoria and self-loathing of getting high like Smith, and the bouncing jangler “New Monkey” is one of the best in this vein. Again and again, the music here sweeps you up, the perfect lonely breeze for late night headphone walks. Like his touchstones Alex Chilton and the Beatles, Smith’s compositions are both instantly ingratiating and dense enough to reward repeat exploration. “Looking Over My Shoulder” and “New Disaster” rank amongst his best, and the alternate versions of “Pretty Mary K” and “Miss Misery” equal or better the originals. Acoustic guitar drives most tracks, and his fluid, imaginative finger picking brings the great Bert Jansch strongly to mind.

Maybe it’s Smith’s natural reach towards greatness, his intrinsic brilliance that makes us so endlessly fascinated. What haunts us is what will never be. What “Yesterday” or “Tangled Up In Blue” was he yet to lay on us? Why the quick, nasty exit when he so clearly understood life’s pleasures as much as its pains? A number of fine, unguarded essays included with New Moon puzzle over these questions and the many others that linger in his wake. In the end, there are no definitive answers. There is only the glorious music created by a troubled, sweet mind. We are lucky to have it.

JamBase | Los Angeles
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