In some ways, it’s hard not to treat “From a Basement on the Hill” as Elliott Smith’s suicide note. When Smith stabbed himself in the heart in his Los Angeles apartment on Oct. 21, 2003, his sixth studio album was largely completed, save some mixing and tracklist decisions. Smith’s death, while absolutely shattering, came with something of a haunting inevitability. Whispered confessions about depression and addiction had long characterized his style, with listeners drawn to a morose beauty woven between the lines. Nonetheless, eyes turned when the LP was released a year after his death, either for answers or consolation.
Emerging from the Portland, Oregon underground scene in the early ’90s, Smith found solace in louder rock, serving as the frontman for alt-rock band Heatmiser before his acoustic singer-songwriter tunes found him locally lionized. On his first and second records, “Roman Candle” and “Elliott Smith”, respectively, dark and confrontational lyrics with muddled acoustics are riddled with Smith’s signature picking style. A sound more akin to Nick Drake, Smith dared to step outside of the northwest zeitgeist of the time – dominated by the rise of grunge and sludge acts such as Nirvana and the Melvins. 1997’s “Either/Or” flung him into the mainstream, with multiple songs being featured in “Good Will Hunting”, released that same year. The newfound resources acquired after his commercial success, coupled with a motivation to develop his sound, spurred the development of his next two LPs, “XO” and “Figure 8”, boundary-pushing albums with instrumental inclusions ranging far beyond the acoustic guitar.
The opening track on “From a Basement”, “Coast to Coast”, begins with an anxious string section, before a sonorous and strident mix of guitar and drums set the tone for a rehashing of rock sounds heard less frequently since “XO”. In the years before his death, Smith’s drug-fueled depressive episodes convinced him that distancing himself from his friends was best for them, and lyrics such as “still, you’re keeping me around, till I finally drag us both down” portray this inceptive track as a letter to them. Raucous noises also find themselves on tracks four and five, “Don’t Go Down” and “Strung Out Again”, the first of which seems to be Elliott’s direct response to any critics who said “Figure 8” lacked his signature storytelling eloquence. An arpeggiated, dissonant lead guitar floats a tale of a dependent relationship, from the point of view of the abuser — it’s a chilling listen with some of Smith’s most powerful delivery. After his death, Smith’s family brought in Rob Schnapf, who’d worked on “Figure 8”, to finish the album’s mixing. If any of these three tunes were not already completed, the less dynamic and more stagnant droning caught at times point to an aversion from Schnapf to make daring choices on behalf of Smith. Smith was known to make songs in an instrumentally flawless image, and then purposely imperfect them, chopping up timings and notes to create a less produced sound. On “Shooting Star”, three drum kits play in misaligned timings, and fans trying to learn Smith’s songs will find themselves detuning their guitars, all for the sake of authenticity. There remains a distinct difference between the two, however, and where “From a Basement” rocks the hardest, it also lacks the intentionality typically associated with Smith.
Smith was the master of the acoustic ballad, and that shines through on “From a Basement” almost as well as on any of his other works. “Let’s Get Lost” and “Twilight” stand tall here, the latter unspooling a relationship mired by addiction in slow, disconsolate refrains. Repeated listens only blur the line on whether the relationship is external, or between Smith and his own troubled psyche; “pretty soon you’ll find it’s the only, little part of your life you’re keeping together”. “A Fond Farewell”, track six, functions as Smith’s unsent breakup letter to the drugs he struggled with in his final years, commencing with a realization — “the litebrite’s now black and white, cause you took apart a picture that wasn’t right” — a poignant acknowledgment of the problem without confrontation. The chorus repeats “this is not my life, it’s just a fond farewell to a friend”, as Smith attempts to convince himself he’s distinguished from his actions.
Smith often referenced The Beatles among his biggest influences, and while the whimsy of “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Sgt. Pepper’s” could be traced to “Figure 8”, whiffs of melancholic McCartney are more present on “From a Basement”. Intonations from the Liverpudlians’ “Michelle” and “I’m So Tired” are glaringly obvious on “Little One”, while “Memory Lane”, a two-faced ballad that delivers heart-rending lyrics on a light, yet extremely technical guitar part, is emblematic of a George Harrison “Abbey Road” tune.
Track seven, “King’s Crossing”, is without a doubt the masterpiece of “From a Basement”, and perhaps Smith’s magnum opus. Lyrics from the song have been traced back over a decade before its release, and one could assume he spent all that time refining them. The song is a slow burn — the first words aren’t spoken until a minute and a half in — but when they commence, it feels like a tuxedoed Smith leads us through his life, portraying each tragedy and climax with Chaplinesque efficacy. The song is an impenitent image of Elliott at his highest highs and lowest lows. As the second verse ends, Smith belts “Give me one good reason not to do it, so do it”-- a gut punch that listeners are given time to cogitate during the bird noises of mid-album interlude, “Ostriches and Chirping”.
“From a Basement” is equally intriguing for what it is and what it is not, what it gives us and what it does not. Controversy surrounding the post-mortem mixing process left many recordings off the album, and experimental techniques — such as shifting multiple songs from mono to stereo midway — were never implemented. However, what we’re left with doesn’t break from the trend Smith set with his first six LPs, a tracklist that both refines and pushes the boundaries of his sound. It’s not his suicide note — that’s a reductive interpretation that could be said of any of his LPs in good context. Rather, “From a Basement on a Hill” stands as an artistic achievement that demands to be appreciated, without any discoloration from listeners’ premonitions about his tragic demise. In this case, it’s not a fond farewell, it’s just his life.
