Through a Glass Darkly
If it's your decision to be open about yourself / Be careful or else.
— Elliott Smith, "Memory Lane"
Elliott Smith was one of a distinguished breed of songwriters to produce deeply personal work that cut below the surface. No phony residue of artifice came between what he sang and what you heard. Smith was for real: for better (or ultimately, for worse) he lived the life of his songs, which always tried to exorcise demons that simply could not be controlled. Smith differed from his compatriots (fellow truth tellers like Mark Eitzel and Richard Buckner) by transcending his acoustic troubadour roots to become a conjurer of Beatlesque studio wizardry. When Smith embraced dense multi-tracking in his latter albums XO and Figure 8, breeding an orgy of harmonies, instruments, and complex arrangements, it only helped to muscle and support the all-consuming weight of the songs. Smith made pop records that actually meant something, in an era when everything is nothing: tangible internal probes that resonated within anyone who was privileged to hear them. He once remarked that he'd always strived to write a song as universally effective as "I Second That Emotion", when in fact, he already had.
When Smith ended his life last October, it was sudden, violent and entirely unacceptable: another stupid joke from an increasingly cruel world, a world that Smith knew far too much about. A native Texan, Smith was most fondly remembered as the unofficial poet laureate of Portland, Oregon. The Rose City provided the inspiration for his hushed masterpieces Elliott Smith and Either/Or, albums that dressed withdrawn punk in folk's clothes. He would meet an untimely end in the belly of Los Angeles, that sprawling urban black hole that feeds on the wandering, the lost, and the transient.
Smith had been laboring over From a Basement on the Hill for years before his death, opting to record most of it on his own in his home studio. There was talk of Smith being unceremoniously dropped from Dreamworks Records, rumors of the new record boasting two CDs worth of material, and disturbingly little assurance that it would ever see the light of day. Following his death, Smith's family brought in his longtime producing partner Rob Schnapf and friend Johanna Bolme to mix what was finished and add whatever bits of seasoning were missing. Smart move, for no one knew the ins-and-outs of Smith's musicology better than Schnapf. From a Basement on the Hill is a decisive triumph, and probably a personal best for Smith -- which makes it all the more frustrating that he's not around to top himself again in a few years. Smith found a delicate balance of his sensibilities during these sessions, and the finished product is a cocktail of the spare, haunting Either/Or and the adventurous craftsmanship of Figure 8.
Unlike Smith's past records, From a Basement on the Hill's effectiveness lies not in its ability to secure penance and release, but in its bold-faced emphasis of no way out. It's an unusually difficult record, because it is wholly reliant on truth -- no matter how perilous or dark -- played by a man who is irreversibly exposed to the elements. To say it's Smith's bleakest record is saying a lot, and admittedly open to scrutiny if one takes into account the shadow of his death, but it's nonetheless a statement that cannot be denied.
Like XO's "Sweet Adeline", "Coast to Coast" opens the album with a bang, though this time the smoke refuses to clear by the song's end. "Is there anything that I could do," Smith asks, his worn-out vocal seeming to answer his own question, "That someone doesn't do for you?" The song explodes with stereo-separated dual drum tracks (played by Beachwood Sparks' Aaron Sperske and the Flaming Lips' Steven Drodz) and an oppressive saturation of instruments. It's hypnotic, anthemic, and disorienting, as Smith sometimes sings different versions of the same line at once. Dialogue bubbles under the song's surface, finally revealing itself in the wake of the final chord's sustain: Televangelists? Poets? Whatever its source, the chatter frenetically gargles on like rapid firing synapses, thoughts that can't be halted.
The fully orchestrated "band" songs on From a Basement on the Hill are some of Smith's heaviest to date. He coats these songs with a layer of protective padding, intentionally keeping us from getting at the core of the tune. Abstracted, fractured, skewed, troubling, at times brutal and impenetrable; Smith dares you to become involved (seducing ears with gorgeous double-tracked vocals and peerless melodies) and then throws you off the scent, leaving you in the thick of it all. "King's Crossing" is the most exhilarating and harrowing example of this method, more unforgiving (lyrically and musically) than any song in Smith's catalog. "I can't prepare for death any more than I already have," Smith frankly confesses, while ambient pools of sound swirl around a pregnant drum beat. The chorus gorges itself on a buffet of dissonant excess, thick sheets of sound stuffing the speakers like emotional flash floods. He adds, "The method acting that pays my bills / Keeps the fat man feeding in Beverly Hills" and then later, cryptically howls: "Give me one good reason not to do it". This is the narrator of "Baby Britain" reaching a point of no return; he's not so much exposing his art as fraud as he's overexposing himself to the point where nothing's left to give. What's left to concede once he's taken his "own insides out", left skeletal and struck dumb?
Smith's hope is now found in retreat, in learning how to disappear: the hope of one more high ("one more little one"), of a "passing feeling", the release that can only be promised from a total dissolve of self. In the past, Smith offered some assistance as an empathizer, acting as a companion to accompany us through each song; here, his narration is egocentric, unable to bear the burden for others for his pain by itself is enough for him to carry. From a Basement on the Hill makes no attempt to mask Smith's instinctual fatalism. In "Let's Get Lost", Smith fingerpicks his acoustic guitar and silently reduces himself to "Burning every bridge I crossed / To find some beautiful place to get lost". He later echoes this sentiment in the vaguely psychedelic haze of "Little One", where Smith hopes to find "One more little one / I'll go down and stay down". Defeat and release go hand in hand in "Last Hour", a sonic cousin to the lo-fi recordings of "Either/Or": "I'm through trying now / It's a big relief / I'll be staying down / Where no one else gonna give me grief / Mess me around / Just make it over".
And still, Smith seems to have a lingering desire to maintain a gap between a perceived life and what he knows is his own inevitability. "Fond Farewell", populated with rubbery, redemptive guitars reminiscent of George Harrison, looks to distort a destructive self-portrait. The song's melody is bouncy, almost cheerful, perhaps an attempt to put a positive spin on lyrics of denial: "Veins full of disappearing ink / Vomiting in the kitchen sink / Disconnecting from the missing link / This is not my life / It's just a fond farewell to a friend". In the woozy, "Helter Skelter"-spiked blur of "Strung out Again", Smith dismisses both existence and destiny as tired and coldly calculable: "I know my place / Hate my face / I know how I began and how I'll end / Strung out again". Even when he claims that he feels "pretty enough for you" in the gorgeous "Pretty (Ugly Before)" (recorded with his touring band), it's an empty statement. Listen to the song's pervasive coda of "ugly before, didn't know what to do" and it becomes obvious what aspect of his self-reflection weighs heavy on his conscience.
The one unfortunate inclusion in the album's otherwise impeccable song selection is the closing track "A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to Be Free". The song appeared last year -- in a drastically different and more effective form -- as a B-side to Smith's single release of "Pretty (Ugly Before)". The version on From a Basement on the Hill overflows with too many ideas, a messy parade of forced lyrics and sound. The earlier version (moody, intriguing) was the demo, but the album version is the one that feels jumbled and unfinished. To say that the original B-side version would have resonated as a stronger closing is an understatement.
From a Basement on the Hill is the sound of a total acceptance and unconditional embrace of resignation. Gone are the glimpses of unexpected optimism found in "Say Yes", the pleas for peace and stability within "Happiness", or the falsely positive smokescreen of "Coming Up Roses". Smith's fond farewell is a resolution in art to an unresolved dilemma in life; it may not tell you exactly what you want to hear, but it speaks an undiluted truth about how inconsequential a consequential person can feel. Smith mattered more to us than his self-perception ever let on, and an ugly world is all the more grotesque without him.
— 15 October 2004
