Earlimart w/Tennis Pro, Some by Sea
Wed Oct 6, Crocodile, 9 pm, $8.
It’s difficult to imagine a death that has resonated deeper in the indie rock community than Elliott Smith’s apparent suicide last October. His violent passing seems haunted by the same mysteries he whispered to life in his evocative melodies. Smith possessed a voice of hopeful desperation, and though he constantly denied connections between his art and his life, suicide somehow seemed both an unsurprising end for a character in his songs and a shocking reality for an artist who lined narratives of the destitute with such harmonious music.
The title of Smith’s upcoming posthumous release, From a Basement on a Hill (out October 19), captures the songwriter’s essence–the revered artist trapped in his own private prison. The irony, of course, is that from that isolated basement Smith touched musicians and music fans alike. One year after his death, Smith’s friend and neighbor, Earlimart songwriter/producer Aaron Espinoza, offers a poignant complement to Smith’s final release. Like the best Elliott Smith records, Earlimart’s Treble & Tremble is ultimately haunting, as Espinoza attempts to give voice to the pain created by Smith’s death.
In soft-spoken delivery, Espinoza sings, “When I came back to town, didn’t want to hear that sound/But there was nothing left I could do/I want to drive by your house just to see if you’re around/and I’ll be waiting there for you” (“The Hidden Track”). And it’s impossible to mistake the subject of the loving portrait “Heaven Adores You,” as Espinoza repeats the title in tiptoeing tones over spacious guitar riffs that swell grander with every repetition. Like his mentor, Espinoza has a gift for treating somber subject matter with a delicacy that avoids maudlin sentimentality. The heavy-heartedness is omnipresent on Treble, and yet there’s also the feeling that the band is making peace with Smith’s death on some level. The opening track, “Hold on Slow Down,” begins with a question, “Well I miss you my friend/will I see your face again?” And the album closes with an answer, “It’s OK to Think About Ending.”
Another songwriter might mishandle an homage to such a beloved figure, but Espinoza’s earnest lyrics don’t pander. The groundwork for this album was laid with 2003’s Everyone Down Here, which found Espinoza and bassist Ariana Murray’s vocal harmonies hovering over lush indie pop soundscapes. The disc drew fans of similar-sounding acts such as Smith and Grandaddy (whose Jim Fairchild helped produce and record Treble & Tremble) as well as reinforcing the L.A. band’s evolution from its noisier rock beginnings.
On From a Basement on a Hill, Smith’s introspective lyrics leave a trail that–intentionally or not–reveal an artist who is aware of his fate. Lyrics slip in and around that unfortunate reality, but in “King’s Crossing,” Smith hits it with chilling precision, singing, “Every wave is tidal, if you hang around you’re gonna get wet/I can’t prepare for death any more than I already have.” The same song ends with the plea, “Don’t let me get carried away,” his fading words juxtaposed against a carnivalesque commotion of birds and whistles. Lyrics such as these will leave Smith fans mining for all the presumed insight they can find about his state of mind. Such clues are easy to spot on every record Smith ever released, if that’s what you’re looking for. But songs like “Strung Out Again” (“I know my place/hate my face/I know how I began and how I’ll end, strung out again”) can be read as a product of his imagination just as easily as a straight confession.
Per usual, though, Smith has couched these songs with whimsical instrumentation, from chirping crickets to the swampy croaks of a frog-filled pond. And even the saddest of songs soars in the heavily orchestrated choruses, masking lines like “gimme one reason not to do it” with overwhelming radiance.
In the end, the new works of Elliott Smith and Earlimart, both of which confront death and depression head on, are plainly intertwined. If Smith’s songs feel like diary entries addressed to an imaginary reader, Earlimart’s record is a response to the discovery of that diary after the fact. Separately, the two discs stand as gorgeous offerings that showcase some of the best work by either act. Taken together, however, they’re an intimate dialogue–a powerful synchronicity made all the more poignant by the knowledge that Smith will never hear the effect his death had on a friend. To know that these two messages will never connect is nothing short of heartbreaking.