Review of Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings (Deluxe Soundtrack) [Explicit]

The good news is that the figure of the rocker that clings exhausted the electric guitar to avoid drowning in a sea of ​​existential angst in here not there. In its place is a twenty year old who gets up at noon, eat junk food and play with the recorder while his girlfriend is working. And in short, the myth is replaced by a young boy and dog bones that weaves the threads of his creativity, even if the second part of the disc actually the atmosphere is more shadowy, painful. The bad news is that the disc contains no creation of singer worthy to be compared to the repertoire of Nirvana. "Montage of heck: the home recordings", in stores on November 13, is a journey in the imagination and the creative process of the leader of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain. S'accompagna perfectly to the film by Brett Morgen of which is Appendix - not coincidentally, these 31 home recordings have been selected precisely by the director whose heirs have given carte blanche. Morgen started from the songs included in the film and then break away from the traditional concept of the soundtrack and build the album as a sort of mixtape from the end of the 80s to the relationship with Courtney Love and the eve of the suicide of the singer. Purpose: To draw the best out of 200 hours of existing tapes and give the impression of being there with Cobain, while assembling its boxes.

"Montage of heck" is in every way a disc Cobain, having voluntarily excluded Morgen incisions made with the group. Private support of Nirvana and caught in the vulnerability of the household context, takes notes while sound, Cobain appears in its expressive power and with its shortcomings as a musician. It's all very approximate, but as a whole "Montage of heck" says something about the world of the singer. Comparison with similar operations recovery of demos and home recordings, I think, for example, the "Anthology" by John Lennon, "Montage of heck" is presented as a work in line with the poetry of his (involuntary) author who used to manufacture sound collages on audiotape, a conceptual framework which should serve to ennoble the album, but some versions of songs known are negligible, the unpublished barely sketched, the sound experiments of little value. Nirvana music is very far. Here is what the disc contains, song by song. There's also a standard version with 13 pieces (indicated by an asterisk).

"The yodel song" *
In practice, the quintessence of the riff of Nirvana with Kurt Cobain on guitar and acoustic accompaniment to vocals and some yodeling, hence the title. It ends with Cobain that says "This guitar seems forgotten." The tuning and intonation, you'll discover along the way, they are not actually the stronger of "Montage of heck".

"Been a son (Early Demo)" *
It resembles not so much a piece of Nirvana originally included in "Incesticide" than the version included in the box set "With the Lights Out" and recorded only by Cobain for radio KAOS Olympia in 1990. The song seems insecure and whispered to those learning a new song.

"What more can I say"
A collage electric already heard in part during the movie "Montage of heck", a draft of the song where Cobain is measured with a structure that alternates between empty and full parts so dear to Nirvana. The audio quality is poor, but there is the surprise of some sort of falsetto.

"1988 Capitol Lake Jam commercial"
A minute and a half, no music, but the parody of a radio advertisement for the small festival at the Capitol Lake Park Olympia with Soundgarden and Nirvana My Name who participated August 20, 1988.

"The happy guitar" *
An instrumental performed on acoustic guitar in an unusually relaxed, devoid of the tension that usually features performances of Cobain.

"Montage Of Kurt"
An editor of two minutes between little voices, effects, echo, concrete sounds, a song snippet.

"Beans"
A sort of joke sound: baby voice, guitar playing so elementary.

"Burn the rain"
More than a song, a way to tell how he spent his days in the apartment she shared with the singer's girlfriend Tracy Marander in Olympia. It began as a song for voice and guitar, something with feeling of "Something in the Way". Then the phone rings, Cobain stops playing and says, "Hello? No, no, it is at work. Ok ... ". End record.

"Clean up before she comes (Early Demo)" *
We are in the same apartment of Olympia. Before you leave home to go to work, Marander is usual to remember boyfriend do the cleaning. He writes a song already emerged in a slightly more elaborate version of the box set "With the lights out." However, one of the most comprehensive pieces included in "Montage". Apparently, the song was echoed by Cobain Pat Smear and Eric Elandson in a session in March 1994 in the house where he would kill himself a month later.

"Reverb experiment" *
Cobain playing with reverb and distortion of his electric guitar for three minutes.

"Montage Of Kurt II"
Another collage of little voices and noises, a kind of perverse cartoon.

"Rehash"
A riffone heavy and Cobain that mimics a metal singer before repeating obsessively "Rehash". The term also means rehash and the piece has the air of parody of who precisely rehashes the metal. Cobain did not even take the trouble to play the solos: it's called a voice, "Only!". In the final, "Rehash" becomes assonance "Smoke hash", smokes hashish. Bad sound quality.

"You can not change me / Burn my britches / Something in the way (Early Demo)" *
While "Something in the Way" was written toward the end of 1990, this medley of three songs must go back to that period. Cobain is on electric guitar and for the first two pieces he pulls out his hoarse tone, doing an imitation of himself while screaming, then move on to clash terribly in this reference of "Something in the Way". There are interesting passages, but all is far from finished. It is not even clear whether the same Cobain was playing or writing seriously ideas for new songs, or both.

"Scoff (Early Demo)" *
From what little the audio allows you to listen, rather than a demo of the song "Beach" seems a caricature of 37 seconds.

"Aberdeen"
No music, here. Just like in the movies where his words were accompanied by animations, Cobain recounts the discovery of marijuana, its wretched sex life in Aberdeen, the notorious relationship with a girl and the resulting delayed his first suicide attempt. If up to this point "Montage of heck" had the playful character of the sound collage, from this point on, the atmosphere becomes darker.

"Bright smile"
Two minutes slow electric guitar with effects and singing thin, very tall. A little experiment almost British folk.

"Underground celebritism"
A sketch of verse, not even 30 seconds recorded roughly for voice and guitar.

"Retreat"
Another instrumental acoustic guitar, a phrase repeated insistently and soon overshadowed by a string of unrest which Cobain adds some vocalization in the final.

"Desire" *
The draft of a song sung in a whisper, and frankly out of tune. It has its own charm and is seamlessly integrated into the canon of Nirvana. In this version it is slight, but it is easy to imagine arranged and recorded as electrical.

"And I love her" *
Cobain's love for the Beatles and John Lennon in particular is well known, but is nevertheless a certain effect to hear him struggling not only with a piece that is more than Paul McCartney that Lennon, a song for more shamelessly d ' love. The dedication is implied to Courtney Love, but the execution is approximate. However, the thing that, in the hard, more like a real song. It comes out on December 4 on 45s with "Sappy (Early Demo)" on the back.

"Sea Monkeys"
"Paula Abdul is a shrimp in brine," says Cobain in this story without music a minute.

"Sappy (Early Demo)" *
"And if you say your prayers, you do the happy God." Already known in the version of Nirvana in the compilation "No alternative" and in the box set "With the Lights Out", "Sappy" is made here so ghostly guitar and vocals, slow and charming. Reflects just the homely character of performance and recording.

"Letters to Frances" *
More you progress in listening, the more we have the impression to cross the life of Cobain. The boy who was playing with the tape recorder is replaced by the father. Frances is in fact the name of the daughter of the singer, born in August 1992, honored with an instrumental acoustic guitar that Cobain stumbles.

"Scream"
White noise and a scream, all repeated for 32 seconds.

"Frances Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle (Demo)" *
The dedication to the actress of Seattle, which found its perfect fulfillment in the album of 1993 "in utero", is offered here in an acoustic demo that adds nothing to our knowledge.

"Kurt ambiance"
Half a minute of ambient noise almost inaudible.

"She only lies" *
A song to make the point that if nothing else seems to complete the verse. The text seems to describe a relationship complicated (with Courtney Love?): "She does nothing but lie [...] I do not do anything but cry to make her feel guilty." Running very informal makes it a simple fact sound, but promising.

"Kurt sound collage"
Sounds of flowing water and twittering of birds.

"Poison's gone"
The attack promises an aggressive song, development ends by the parties of "Something in the Way", the finale is again bustling. After about 2 minutes the phone rings and the piece ends.

"Rhesus monkey"
A short reading starred at supersonic speed. "If I do not love myself, how do I live and love you? Questions ... questions ".

"Do Re Mi (Medley)"
One of the last things recorded by Cobain, already known in the demo of 4 minutes and a half of 1994 included in the box set "With the lights out." It is interesting not so much from the musical point of view, but for the transport that Cobain puts in the first part where his voice takes on a tone almost nasal and for the character torn and almost exhausted of the second, divided neatly by the first and evidently recorded in a ' other occasion. At the time of writing these lines have not been widely detailed notes on the origin of this and other songs of the album, but it is known that Cobain recorded the latest version of "Do Re Mi" at his home in Seattle on March 25, the day when Courtney Love, his managers, friends and a therapist organized a comparison to convince him to detox. He had just made heroin. He looked at them one by one in the eye and said, "Who the fuck are you to tell me this?".