It might sound a little strange to put things this way, but it's quite a refreshing experience to take a posthumous release and not feel that strange sense of discomfort that sometimes accompanies it. Whenever an artist dies before their time there is a natural curiosity to know even more about them than even we did when they were alive and every scrap and remnant is poured over and examined. This has been the case with Elliott Smith as much as it has been with anyone, most notably with the release of From A Basement On A Hill - constantly looking for clues, answers in the work in progress which that record was.

The feeling is less so as New Moon's 24 tracks are specifically taken from the mid-90's Elliott Smith / Either Or era, and the distance from 2003's harrowing events means less enforced context, a reduced sense of portent. It's not that there aren't many of the familiar themes, moreover it reinforces much of what we already know about Elliott Smith; a rare talent, a songwriter with a unique identity and a prodigous output, and yes a troubled soul. There's just less of the crushing weight attached to Basement, and its easier to enjoy these songs more for what they are.

And what they are is 24 tracks, many of which have been available on bootlegs,demos, b-sides, but given a tidier mix. However this doesn't lose much of the original feel - that raw, intimate beauty of Elliott's always involving guitar lines, up close and personal vocals, opulent harmonies, combined with images of deadened experience, of numbness, a sense of dissatisfaction and dissaffection, and yes even oblivion.

On Riot Coming he tells of how  "I met a girl on the square who showed me how to kill my cares" ; Go By describes a situation where you "live inside your head scared of every little noise" ; High Times declaims "I dont go where I'm supposed to go / and i dont go really anywhere, you know", and then on New Monkey, well guess what he rhymes the title with... . But I'll stop there, in order to avoid falling into weak cliché and doing exactly what I set out to not do; picking these images out of any of Elliott Smith's music is like shooting fish in a barrel.

The tracks are beautful and unsettling at once, yes some are more like sketches (Whatever (Folk Song in C)), others more fleshed out (High Times), but the craft in the songs and the passion involved, which was often belied by Smith's slacker-image (or rather that which was imposed on him) both underlines the quality found in his two Kill Rock Stars releases, but sometimes gives a slight nod or pointer to the broader sound worked with on XO and Figure 8.

Some see this earlier period as the quintissential Elliott Smith - that denies the fact that later work such as Amity, Bled White, Stupidity Tries and others stand up with most anything else he created, and that there is a fully fleshed out band sound on Fear City and New Monkey -  but it is true to say he was most adept at carrying off the trick of never allowing the largely acoustic nature of his early work to mask the individual identity of the songs. To be fair, it's no trick, it's a testament to the strength of the writing. All Cleaned Out appears to be the simplest of acoustic progressions, but its melodic strength elevates it to something much more, gives it an uplifting feel. Similar claims can be made for Seen How Things Are Hard.

There are also neat embellishments such as the way the gently insistent strumming in High Times, a definite highlight, gives way to a layered mix of guitars and vocals; Big Decision comes at you like the Philip Glass/Johnny Cash collaboration that I can't help feeling there always should have been even though the idea has just popped into my head now. Frankly the song is brilliant. The aforementioned Fear City takes a loping groove and slightly mournful organ as its lead, eschewing the acoustics, the hushed vocal. Organ is also prominent on Either/Or, perfectly balancing on the line between funereal and end of the pier.

The early, slightly differently worded version of Miss Misery adds very little to the original, but it doesn't need to, it's still spine-tingling. Then to add a doleful cover of Alex Chilton's Thirteen injects an enjoyable extra dimension to the whole. Similarly Pretty Mark K (other verson) provides a very different proposition to the track which appeared on Figure 8.

New Moon is certainly an essential addition to Smith's oeuvre - it adds to his stock as a wonderful, inventive, passionate craftsman. Whilst mostly showcasing the acoustic side, it gives glimpses into the music he would grow into making subsequently. No mere cutting room floor scraps these, but an album that stands up on its own as well as complimenting others.

Release date: 07/05/2007
Artist website: www.sweetadeline.net
Label: Kill Rock Stars

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