Hear No. 2’s Previously Unreleased Elliott Smith Collaboration “Who’s Behind The Door?”

Hear No. 2’s Previously Unreleased Elliott Smith Collaboration “Who’s Behind The Door?”

No. 2’s 2002 album What Does Good Luck Bring? is getting reissued later this month, and the band’s Neil Gust — who started Heatmiser with Elliott Smith — is including a demo of a song called “Who’s Behind The Door?” that Smith recorded in his Los Angeles studio in 2003 and plays guitar and keyboards on. (The Decemberists’ drummer John Moen also plays on the song.) The track seems to have been floating around previously, but it’s been unavailable for a while and this is the first time it’s seeing an official release. Gust told Consequence Of Sound about the circumstances behind its creation:

’Who’s Behind the Door?’ was one of 4 new songs No. 2 played on what turned out to be our final tour. Elliott came to our show in LA at The Troubadour and offered to record us at the studio he was putting together for himself in the Valley. We showed up, tracked the basics for 2 songs in one day, then Jim and John packed up and headed back to Portland. I stayed for what I thought was going to be a couple days of overdubs. Instead, I was there for 2 weeks trying to finish one song. Elliott finished the mix long after I returned to Portland in order to keep my job, but I didn’t hear it until after he died. This recording session was the last time I saw him.

Listen below.

The What Does Good Luck Bring? reissue is out 4/28 via Jealous Butcher Records.

more from New Music