After the deliberate fuckery of From a Basement on the Hill, this collection of songs recorded from ‘94 to ‘97 was a bracing reminder of Smith’s early brilliance, a dark time that appears lighter in retrospect. His death was a stunning stop after months and months of whispered concern, a massive deflation that blew cold air through his already downcast discography. And that was just for folks like you and me. New Moon was, then, an ideal release, presenting the artist as he was ascending from the basement. It’s heavy on fingerpicking and intimacy, with most songs containing voice and guitar only. Smith’s output was notoriously melancholy, but rarely did he come off as broken or pathologically withdrawn. Here, even the gloomier tunes are rendered with a vibrancy.

The big draw here is an early version of “Miss Misery,” which allows for a glimpse into his creative process. The soundtrack version rejiggers the internal rhyme (“cold pain in my eyes” gives way to “poison rain down the drain”) and ramps up the allusive imagery (he gives a performer to the palm reading and removes the decade from a movie flashing on a TV set). His showiest change is linking his first bridge with the second verse: they share the word “you,” and the effect is, essentially, a jump cut. “Pretty Mary K (Other Version)” shares little more than most of a title with its sibling on Figure 8. The former is a gloomily rollicking portrait, backed by a muffled snare, reaching crushing skips at the end of his verses. “Either/Or” didn’t make the cut for its titular album, but its deceptively genial, Lovin’ Spoonful-esque arrangement is an IED to be lobbed, possibly, as his native scene.

New Moon also takes the chance to re-assert Smith’s compositional gifts in his Heatmiser years, specifically Mic City Sons’ “See You Later” and “Half Right,” performed on the radio in 1996, along with Big Star’s “Thirteen”. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Heatmiser tracks now sound like Chilton tunes. “See You Later” in particular is missing the low end, both in Smith’s once-husky vocal tones and in the bassline, which recalled, oddly, Alanis Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket.” His “Thirteen” is plaintive and gracious, but unless your name is Albert Hammond, Jr., it’s impossible to fuck up “Thirteen.” Smith’s own talent for the catchy wisp — generally shelved, or deployed on B-sides like “I Don’t Think I’m Ever Gonna Figure It Out” — is on display here. “Whatever (Folk Song in C)” could’ve been written by the narrator of “Thirteen” a couple years on. Circling the phrase “what are you doin’/ hangin’ out with me?”, Smith pushes his sotto voce approach to the breaking point on a needy bridge, closing with a surprise: a couple of Roman Candle chords.

A tenderly curated set, New Moon is two discfuls of a craftsman’s legacy, tinkering with turnarounds and bridges, exploring the possibilities of his limited pipes, suggesting a crushing rock act with a trap kit and organ. It’s certainly a better introduction than the actual one: Kill Rock Stars’ An Introduction to Elliott Smith, which props up the singular dimension of a troubled soul and skimps on his later years, likely due to rights issues but still. The songs aren’t largely filled with melodic barbs or stinging solos. They show an artist in full command only of the powers he’d displayed to date. But it’s a winning formula, glittering again and again.