Portland indie-rock label Kill Rock Stars today announced plans to reissue Elliott Smith’s albums “Roman Candle” and “From a Basement on a Hill” on April 6.

“Roman Candle,” Smith’s first solo album, came out in 1994 on Cavity Search Records. Anti- released “From a Basement on a Hill” in 2004, a year after Smith died of two knife wounds to the chest.

Acquiring the albums means KRS now has the rights to all the LPs Smith recorded for independent labels. Kill Rock Stars released two of the five studio albums Smith made while he was alive: his self-titled 1995 album and his 1997 masterpiece “Either/Or.” DreamWorks released two of the other three: “XO” in 1998 and “Figure 8″ in 2000.

To celebrate the reissues, Kill Rock Stars is giving away an mp3 of “Cecilia/Amanda,” a previously unheard song Smith first recorded with his high school band, Stranger Than Fiction. This version features lyrics that are almost completely different.

LISTEN
Cecilia/Amanda mp3

December 15, 2009 at 12:55 pm | Share |