Elliott Smith Mixtape

Another Artist Mixtape; this time, Elliott Smith. The late, great, Portland-based songwriter has probably been my most consistently listened-to artist of the past two years (another artist I discovered, once again, thanks to the soundtrack of The Royal Tenenbaums), and it's not hard to see why. From the minute you first hear his "spiderweb thin" vocal delivery, intricate finger picking guitar style, and his Beatles-esque pop craftsmanship, the endearingly introverted yet uniquely captivating quality of his music hits you with full force.

But at the same time, his influential songwriting, along with that of a previously featured artist, Daniel Johnston, is just as hard to pin down as it would be to replicate. Each of his albums stands out as an entirely separate entity. Their respective sets of songs work together both musically and thematically, showcasing a specific area of Elliott's psyche appropriate to the present stage of his life; early solo recordings made while in Heatmiser, his shift upwards from indie- to major record label, his sudden reception into the mainstream with an Oscar nomination, his ongoing alcoholism, and finally his descent towards suicidal depression. To a fan, any particular song when listened to on its own would conjure up feelings similarly felt with the other songs on the same album, such is their flow and cohesion.

As such, it's hard to get the same flow to a compilation, which has to veer between the quiet, guitar-plucked / drum-brushed, whispery numbers of Roman Candle and Elliott Smith, and those fully-instrumented grandiose songs from Figure 8 and XO which fly with the full effect of Elliott's musicianship. So the songs in this mix are simply my favourites. The ones which, at some time or another in the last two years, I have been completely obsessed with, and which I could listen to forever. As for the arrangement, I tried to make each song lead into the next, but out of the context of their own albums all that usually happens is I'll want to go off and listen to each song again, surrounded by its original counterparts.

1. Between the Bars (Either/Or)
2. Everything Reminds Me of Her (Figure 8)
3. Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (XO)
4. Memory Lane (From a Basement On the Hill)
5. Whatever (Folk Song in C) (New Moon) / Bottle Up and Explode! (XO)
6. Single File (Elliott Smith) / Wouldn't Mama Be Proud? (Figure 8)
7. Waltz #2 (XO)
8. No Name #2 (Roman Candle)
9. Alphabet Town (Elliott Smith)
10. Somebody That I Used To Know (Figure 8)
11. Angeles (Either/Or)
12. Kiwi Maddog 20/20 (Roman Candle)
13. King's Crossing (From a Basement On the Hill)
14. Son of Sam (Figure 8)
15. I Didn't Understand (XO)