Appreciation for the leaked Elliott Smith Basement 2 demos

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I have been an Elliott Smith fan for about 6 years now, and I consider him to be my favourite singer / songwriter of all time. I really liked the posthumous "From a Basement on the Hill" album, but regret never hearing it the way it was intended, as a double album.

Rumour had it that the second disc would be made up of experimental instrumentals (term may not exist), and over 40 songs were left off the eventual "Album".

Now several likely "leftovers" have been leaked to the internet, and we get to hear some new Elliott songs for the first time, as well as studio versions of some live favourites.

I think this "album" is incredible. As I said, we'll never know how "From a Basement.." would have been, but hearing some of this stuff that didn't make the cut, it's astounding.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the man, the myth or (most importantly) the music ?

― Erock LAzron, Thursday, 27 October 2005 02:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I just got the so called "From a Basement on a Hill 2" or the "Basement Demos" or whatever.

I think it's pretty great. I'm a fan of Smith (not really a huge fan. I don't have every album but "Either/Or" is in my top 20 albums list) and the ocassional "Demos" album, but I think this stuff would've been great as a 2-disc comp or maybe a bonus disc to a Documentary DVD.

But all in all, it's definately worth having.

― Voodoo Child, Thursday, 27 October 2005 03:22 (eighteen years ago) link

liking this alot really. aside from the first song they are all pretty well recorded. 'high times' is a current fave as of now.

― drone/a/saur (william), Thursday, 27 October 2005 05:03 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, "High Times" is wicked. Also really liking "Riot Coming" and "Abused".

― Erock Lazron, Friday, 28 October 2005 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link

"High Times" is indeed a stand-out. I quite love this right now.

Other highlights: "Riot Coming", "Placeholder", "Angel In The Snow", "Abused". I'm not sure which ones are "new" ie songs that he was working on for Basement before he died, and which ones have been around for ages, usually performed live, but it doesn't matter anyway. None of them (except "Placeholder" but it's a great song regardless) sound half-finished at all, I think they'd make a completely fine comp - which is rare for most posthumous releases.

― Roz (Roz), Saturday, 29 October 2005 05:56 (eighteen years ago) link

What I'm really hoping for is that his family decides to compile a boxset of his unreleased stuff, as I'm sure there's a ton of it lying around.

Perhaps we'll have to wait a few more years, but hopefully the urge to make some money from his spirit will get us a boxset out of this.

Apparentally theres a ton of stuff from "Basement" that is still unreleased. We need a set for the fans with all his albums. I want it so bad.

― Erock Lazron, Saturday, 29 October 2005 16:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Anybody wanna YSI etc.?

― Douglas (Douglas), Saturday, 29 October 2005 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Elliott Smith - 'Basement II' Demos [2005]
elliott smith - the moon is a light bulb breaking [2004]

both of these are up on 5l5k douglas.

― drone/a/saur (william), Saturday, 29 October 2005 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

What I'm really hoping for is that his family decides to compile a boxset of his unreleased stuff, as I'm sure there's a ton of it lying around.

If the quality is as good as the Basement II demos I don't mind. Otherwise, there's really nothing worse than hearing an obviously half-finished, half-hearted piece of work.

douglas: The whole thing can be found here.

― Roz (Roz), Sunday, 30 October 2005 05:19 (eighteen years ago) link

all of those links are dead and that megaupload site doesn't seem to work either

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 30 October 2005 06:21 (eighteen years ago) link

If I knew how to do the YSI thing, I'd be all over it. Sorry man, I'm incompetant at this particular part.

Also I'm drunk. C'mon, I'm doin' my best here.

― Erock Lazron, Sunday, 30 October 2005 06:32 (eighteen years ago) link

The megaupload site works. You've got to wait about a minute or so until the timer counts down to zero. Otherwise, like someone else said, it's up on slsk.

― Roz (Roz), Sunday, 30 October 2005 06:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Try here, direct to the song by song -

http://www.elliottsmithbsides.com/BasementIIDemos.htm

share the love

― Erock Lazron, Sunday, 30 October 2005 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link

okay, I got these somewhere else. they're pretty amazing, there's no reason to not officially release this whole collection, since none of it sounds any worse than the s/t album except for the first song. Nice to have a recording of Thirteen too.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, and a studio version of "Amanda Cecilia" too. Soooo good.

― Erock LAzron, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

From Sweet Addy:

On May 8, 2007, Kill Rock Stars will release a double CD of music by Elliott Smith entitled New Moon. The album contains 24 songs recorded 1994-1997, a prolific time in Smith's career, when he recorded his self-titled album and Either/Or (both also released by Kill Rock Stars).

― G00blar, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link

i heard about this last month, cool that it's coming out. I wonder how different these mixes will be from the demos?

― akm, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link

twelve years pass...

from the scrapped early 2001 Brion sessions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6dBxvMDhhc

― flappy bird, Saturday, 6 July 2019 03:34 (four years ago) link

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