Whether you think it’s blatant grave-robbing or a kind of poignant, fitting send off, posthumous releases are a source of great contention for fan and label alike. Either way, Domino have seen fit to release the album Elliott Smith was working on at the time of his death a year ago. Rob Schnapf, who co-produced Smith’s former work, and the singer’s ex-girlfriend, Joanna Bolme, lovingly provided the finishing touches to what must have been a bittersweet project for all involved.
Unlike Jeff Buckley’s Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk, Smith’s album is a more fully-realised body of work. It bears the hallmarks of Smith’s heartfelt, understated songwriting. With the exact details of his death still shrouded in mystery, the question soon arises, was Smith knowingly playing his own swansong? Is ‘A Fond Farewell’ really as literal as it first appears?
Like most of Smith’s music, the album sounds on occasion like the work of a man carrying out a war in his own mind, yet is also tinged with calm and life-affirming joy.
Many songs reflect his usual mix of hope, frustration and weary resignation to life’s injustices.
Ultimately, the pained lyrics provide some kind of clue to his mysterious death, and the heart of the album.
“I can’t prepare for death any more than I already have/All you can do now is watch the shells/The game looks easy/That’s why it sells,” he sings plaintively on ‘King’s Crossing’.
For fans, From A Basement On The Hill is a paean to exquisite pain and melancholia… a profoundly, unbearably heartbreaking sign of what might have been.