Elliott Smith Documentary Producer Details Soundtrack
The Elliott Smith documentary Heaven Adores You was released to DVD and Blu-ray this July, and like Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, work on the film uncovered a treasure trove of unreleased music and home recordings that will be boiled down into a soundtrack. Pitchfork spoke to Heaven Adores You producer and Smith friend Kevin Moyer about the soundtrack’s progress and what material might land on the album.
“Right now, my track list is 20 Elliott songs from the film with only around four or five having been previously released,” Moyer said. “I spent a lot of time on the song selection and sequence order so that it is hopefully a balance between rough and polished works, early and late career compositions, instrumental and vocals both, and trying to make sure that we showed his evolution as an artist too, but also retaining the story that the film presents as well as making sure that the soundtrack has a good flow and is an enjoyable listen.”
The soundtrack’s opening two recordings are unfinished instrumentals that represent “a world of music where Elliott’s voice is missing, and that is really fucking sad,” Moyer said. “We are still finishing it all up, but I know that the label plans to make an announcement in the upcoming weeks that will reveal the release date and also the full track list too.”
In May 2014, Moyer spoke about unearthing 15 to 20 unreleased Smith songs for Heaven Adores You, which began as a Kickstarter campaign to fund the film. “I’m one of the few people who have been able to look into both the Universal and Kill Rock Star vaults,” Moyer said. “Elliott’s masters are split between two labels. It was fun to be able to get in there and listen to songs and try to get some of that music that had never been heard out there and into the fans’ ears.”