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Fifteen Portland, Oregon-based artists each cover a song by the late Elliott Smith on this benefit compilation disc, with a portion of proceeds going to the Elliott Smith Foundation's charity Free Arts for Abused Children. I've read that some of Smith's more possessive fans, those who regard Smith as besainted and his work as sacred, have taken umbrage to some of these interpretations on principle; granted some of them fall short, but people record bad covers all the time, and fortunately, most of these are pretty good, with a lot of respect and genuine affection for Smith and his work in evidence here.
The Decemberists' Collin Meloy provides a somewhat rote-sounding rendition of "Clementine" as a cowboy ballad with harmonica. Electro-pop duo The Helio Sequence gives a fairly straightforward acoustic reading of "Satellite," with atmospheric electronics providing a spacey backdrop. "The Biggest Lie" is given a Southern-flavored soft-rock treatment by Dolorean. The version of "Ballad of Big Nothing" contributed by The Thermals faithfully captures the scrappy quality of Smith's mid-period recordings. One of the more out-there interpretations on the disc, and one of the highlights, is the beautifully eerie "I Didn't Understand" from Swords, based mainly on organs and accordion and featuring echoing, almost orchestral bursts of percussion. Sexton Blake utilizes some nice knob-twisting effects on his rendition of "Rose Parade." One track that doesn't work is "Needle in the Hay" from Eric Matthews, which is inappropriately heavy and swaggering and generally overdone. We Are Telephone takes "Division Day" into power-pop territory. The most electronic-based working is Crosstide's "Angeles"; the music isn't really a problem but the overly-emotive vocals are. Another clunker is Knock-Knock's Portishead-wannabe trip-hop take on "Speed Trials." The disc's most unexpected track is the hip-hop interpretation of "Happiness" contributed by Lifesavas—it's surprising at first, but in the end, hip-hop seems like a natural medium for Smith's tales of the street. A whole album of hip-hop Smith covers would be an interesting experiment. The disc closes out with its most harrowing track, an unreleased song called "High Times" performed by Smith's friend and former roommate Sean Croghan, whose wailing vocals and chaotic psychedelic guitar reveal a raw desperation that Smith always restrained in his own recordings. (mike.04.06)
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