Only fans of the late Elliott Smith are probably aware of the fact that, toward the end of his life, he was experimenting with a different kind of music, noise tracks as they were called, with layers of sounds not necessarily sounding as something you would expect from him, but building interesting atmosphere and intriguing sonic landscapes. Five of these noise tracks have surfaced on message boards and different websites, and I have listened to four of them.
It is difficult to know when exactly they were composed, if they were even finished, (many have suggested they were not), and how many are really out there. None of them have vocals and some are much more experimental than others. Here is the list:
‘Yay!’: It is a powerful and dramatic piece, with an explosive sound which seems to come from a very far place and ends up very brutally. It sounds like a mysterious, solemn and at the same time alarming march, or a battle against a force growing more and more powerful, which becomes so messy and fuzzy after a few minutes, it had to violently crash.
You can listen to it here:
‘The assassin’, also known as ‘(kill) fuck’: I am not sure why people have declared it was a noise track since it is more conventional, with a repetitive musical motif interrupted by sparse notes generating a curious bipolar atmosphere of angry, anxious parts versus quiet and wandering moments. The track culminates into something noisier but lighten up with bright high-pitched guitars before very slowly falling down like a dead body.
‘O so slow’: Like the previous one, it could almost be a song with vocals, and who knows if Elliott wanted to put vocals on these? ‘O so slow’ is anything but slow, or quiet but has explosive drums and lamenting distorted fuzzy guitars. It goes on for more than 5 minutes, injuring the sound violently, draining it to its last aching resource, and finally disintegrating it into nothing.
You can listen to it here:
‘Melodic noise’: It is probably the most haunting one, and the most original of all the noise tracks, with this vibrating eerie sound which turns on itself like a dead leave that does not want to reach the ground, brutally darkened by this enormous parasitic rumbling noise which arrives like a monstrous electrostatic insect. The track lasts for seven minutes with its repetition and succession of ghostly and tenebrous parts.
You can listen to it here:
‘Pink noise/White noise’: I have unfortunately never heard this one, which may be floating somewhere in the cyberspace