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latest news - new moon - coming out: may 8, 2007

glorious noise interviews larry & new moon preview

thanks to jake for taking the time to email us about a recent interview he did with larry crane about new moon on glorious noise! the article is a very insightful interview and includes some great detail about where the songs from new moon came from and how the record came together. aside from being a friend of elliott's, larry crane also mixed new moon, supervised the mastering, helped with the sequencing, and wrote part of the liner notes. larry is the archivist for elliott's estate as well. if you would like to check out the article at glorious noise, please go here: glono interview: larry crane, archivist of elliott smith's estate. larry was also kind enough to take some time and post in a thread on sweet addy about the article. if you would like to check it out, please click here: sweet addy.

thank you to john for emailing us too about his recent preview of new moon on his blog at uncut. his preview is the first press (that i've seen) to hear and talk about the record so far, so there might be promos of new moon starting to go out for review :) john was also one of the first uk journalists to interview elliott (for nme) and wrote plenty about him through the years. if you are interested in getting john's thoughts about the record, please go to his blog here: elliott smith's new moon (3.10.07)


new moon record cover & larry talks about new moon

thank you so much to maggie for sending us the final album cover for the upcoming elliott smith record, new moon! :) the cover was created by mike king, who is a desinger and poster artist from portland, or and who has done a lot of wonderful work. mike also created the artwork for one of elliott's shows at the crystal ballroom on june 3, 2000. here is a link to the poster he created. if you are interested in checking out more of his work, please go to: crashamerica.com. the album cover along with the music from new moon is coming out on may 8, 2007! so far, the record is not available for pre-orders just yet, but the minute we hear that they are through krs or any other outlets, we promise to let you know! if you want to see a larger image of the record cover, please click on the image. (please click this link for a high resolution copy of the album cover)

thanks to timothyedward from sweet addy for posting info from the latest issue of tape op (jan/feb 2007) about the work larry crane did on a specific song that will be featured on new moon and generally speaking about bring new moon together. this info comes up in a review larry did about the beatles' love record. the mention about the work larry did is pretty insightful and timothyedward was kind enough to post it on sweet addy. if you would like more info about the wonderful recording magazine larry publishes, please go to tapeop.com. anyway, here is what larry said:

"the beatles love this cd brings up an interesting thought: how much messing around with an artist's back catalouge and master tapes is ethical? i recently started working with the estate of elliott smith, researching and archiving my late friend's music for his family and for the future. one of the first jobs entailed working with kill rock stars and the estate on a collection of mostly unreleased material. i researched what tracks might be out there, dug through the reels to find unreleased masters, and then transfered tracks into protools and did the mixes. one song which consisted of double tracked vocals and an acoustic guitar, i found that the guitar track had a prominent scraping flange sound all through it--see "last hour" on elliott's basement on the hill album which is on the same reel-- i tried mixing it and was unhappy with the flange noise, and then i remembered that i'd found a take of the same song on another reel, yet with no vocals. so i flew the tracks together, matching the instrumental take with the acoustic guitar track where the vocals were instead of just flying the vocals on top of the other take in order to keep the vocal phrasing dead on. over eight hours later i had something that worked pretty good. thankfully he had used the same arrangement and key. the tempo is just a little off, so i used a time compression program to get it closer. so i made it work but was it okay to do this? we made sure that the liner notes were clear on what had been done to this track and noted that the rest of the album wasn't created this way. i felt that in this rare case of having a flawed guitar track and perfectly fleshed out instrumental take that showcased elliott's arangement skills, the option was laid out in front of me what should be done." (2.17.07)


new moon

happy valentine's day everyone! we are so happy to help announce the release of the upcoming double cd of elliott's music, new moon :) elliott's family and kill rock stars were nice enough to send us the press release about the upcoming record and a previously unreleased photo of elliott to share. thank you to them for releasing more of elliott's music! :) as you will read, the 2 disc record is coming out on may 8th of this year and features 24 of elliott's songs (below is the tracklist) from the time he worked with kill rock stars. so here is the press release and picture that elliott's family and kill rock stars were nice enough to share:

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 1995-1997, a prolific time in Smith's career, when he recorded his self-titled album and Either/Or (both also released by Kill Rock Stars).

Arguably the most gifted song-writer of his generation, Elliott Smith produced a large body of work that includes five solo albums, as well as From a Basement on the Hill (2004), a collection of songs completed before his death in 2003. Like his other work, New Moon reflects the power of Smith's ability to integrate rich, melodic music with poetic, multi-layered lyrics.

The final mixing for the double cd was done by Larry Crane, who is the archivist for the estate of Elliott Smith A significant portion of proceeds from the album sales will go directly to Outside In, a Portland-based social service organization dedicated to providing diverse services for homeless youth and low-income adults.

Elliott Smith died October 21, 2003, in his home in Los Angeles. To date the coroner has been unable to determine the cause of death, and the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department remains open.

ELLIOTT SMITH
NEW MOON
(Kill Rock Stars)
Release date: May 8, 2007

Disc 1

Angel In The Snow
Talking To Mary
High Times
New Monkey
Looking Over My Shoulder
Going Nowhere
Riot Coming
All Cleaned Out
First Timer
Go By
Miss Misery (early version)
Thirteen

Disc 2

Georgia Georgia
Whatever (Folk Song in C)
Big Decision
Placeholder
New Disaster
Seen How Things Are Hard
Fear City
Either/Or
Pretty Mary K (other version)
Almost Over
See You Later
Half Right


please click on image for a larger view :)

at this time, no album cover has been released but if we are lucky to get a copy of the image, we will post it as soon as possible. new moon is also a double lp and it will be on domino records in europe. it will be on krs everywhere else in the world. but a big thank you to everyone involved for releasing more of elliott's beautiful music. thanks to elliott's family, maggie, slim and everyone at krs, larry crane, friends & loved ones, everyone we don't know about, and fans (neil, patrick and philip). i hope you all go out and pick up new moon on may 8th. not only to rock but to be a part in helping out a wonderful organization, outside in. i hope this news makes your day bright! xo (2.14.07)


the first evidence fans got that kill rock stars was looking into a future elliott smith release came through a posting on the upcoming releases page for kill rock stars on the krs website. the posting was made by an excited fan who works for kill rock stars and the page mentioned the title of the release would be 'either/or extended edition' and it would be released in 2006.

that information was quickly taken off the krs site since it was really early in decision process and the info was not suppose to be out there at the time. kill rock stars eventually confirmed that they were planning on releasing an extended edition and it was now planned for 2007 since it would be the 10th anniversary of the release of either/or but in the end they have decided to leave either/or alone and are in the process of researching and putting together a record of unreleased music and possible b-sides from elliott's time at krs. at this time, there is no official track list or release date for the record. also, please keep in mind that it is possible that things could change for any reason. (8.18.06)