The track has parallels with Division Day and Alameda, with Elliott’s artisan mastery of pop language and angsty self-indictment dragging the song through angular organ stabs, steady drums, and withering guitars.

Recorded somewhere between Either/Or and XO, The Enemy Is You is a brooding, saudade stomp through anxiety and fear.

Looming over constantly is a reference to the character “Charlie”, a recurring figure through Elliott’s early songs, who many fans speculate to be a reference to his alleged abusive stepfather, framing No Confidence Man through a haunting looking glass of spite and violence. No Confidence Man boasts all the hallmarks of early Elliott, channelling the hotheaded ferocity of Roman Candle, and with tell all lyrics of pent up domestic anger. One month after Roman Candle’s release on Cavity Search, Elliott recorded No Confidence Man as the b-side to a split with fellow Portland musician Pete Krebs.

For those unfamiliar, here are a few of the most enduring cuts from his discography, both released and unreleased, to hopefully spur the uninitiated onto their own journey through Elliott’s vast assemblage of pop masterworks.įollowing the warm local reception of Roman Candle’s sandpaper folk, Elliott took a quick stop off before producing his acclaimed self titled album to put together his second record of 1994. Most of the tracks here can be found on the fantastic, definitive fan compilation Grand Mal ( available for free on the Sweet Addy forums), and each provide unique insights into the multifaceted individual that is Elliott Smith. Across b-sides, scrapped sessions, other projects, leaks and more, Elliott left behind a hugely-rewarding external catalogue of songs for fans to discover, being an advocate of sharing and bootlegging as a means of “trading music with each other”.

However, beyond Elliott’s six studio albums lies a king’s ransom in pop finesse and reflective heartache. To this day, the enduring balance between sweetness and misery in Elliott’s music draws in obsessives and diehards that identify so closely with his work, presenting a problem for fans only familiar with his studio output.

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