As for the reaction from people who actually knew Smith, in a thread on Sam Coomes' Facebook page, Tony Lash, Smith's former Heatmiser bandmate, says the songs 'harmed my ears.' Rob Schnapf, producer of four Smith albums, called them 'pretty awful.' Larry Crane, Smith's archivist, tells WW he hasn't listened to the tracks, but confirms Doughty did reach out to him. Ryan Walsh, writing for the Boston Globe's music blog BDCwire, wonders if this is all somehow part of Doughty's ongoing mission to divorce himself from his former band.

'here's no way that, in 1998, Doughty could have explained to Smith what kind of track he might make 16 years later,' writes Spin. Except, Doughty only got around to laying down the beats last November, when he unearthed the long-lost tape containing Smith's recordings.ĭoughty has alleged this is the form the collaboration was meant to take, but that didn't stop fans, and a few publications, from calling his motives into question. Posted to a Soundcloud page for Doughty's solo project UUL, they find Smith singing over some pretty silly 'EDM' production that probably sounded outdated even back in the late '90s, when Doughty recorded the vocals-a cappella and through an uber-expensive binaural head microphone-at a studio in L.A. Sure, there have been posthumous albums-2004's From a Basement on the Hill, half-completed at the time of his suicide, and the 2007 odds-and-sods collection New Moon-but for the most part, the songwriter, who spent what many consider his best years in Portland, has avoided having his vault picked clean over the last decade, due either to his family's desire to carefully mitigate his memory or because there might not be much left that the public hasn't heard.Īnd so, when Pitchfork reported Tuesday that ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty had issued three songs featuring unreleased Elliott Smith vocal tracks, you'd think fans would be elated. Normally, this would be treated as a grand occurrence, given that, unlike many of his peers in the gone-too-soon club, Smith's recorded legacy seemed to more or less end when he died in 2003. By MATTHEW SINGER Januat 11:56 am PSTīy now, you've likely heard about the brouhaha surrounding the release this week of previously unheard Elliott Smith material. A QUESTION MARK: Smith at a 1996 photo shoot for Larry Crane's Tape Op magazine.

Elliott smith either or photoshoot