The impact of Elliott Smith s music holds no bounds. He has been championed, covered, and sampled by artists from Billie Eilish to Pearl Jam to Frank Ocean and his distinct, solemn sound reverberates in the work of the National, Phoebe Bridgers and Bon Iver. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elliott Smiths self-titled second solo album, Kill Rock Stars/UMGI is set to release the Elliott Smith: Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition.The package includes a revelatory new remastering of the original Elliott Smith record and a bonus disc of the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act, from September 17, 1994 at Portlands caf and art salon Umbra Penumbra. The albums come encased within a 52-page coffee table book with handwritten lyrics, reminiscences from Smiths friends and colleagues about his life at the time he was writing and recording this album, and two dozen previously unseen photographs from the era by JJ Gonson, who shot the image on the albums cover (the original photo that became the cover is also seen here for the first time).When Elliott Smith was released in July 1995, it was so dramatically out-of-step with the later stages of grungeand with the indie rock and Riot Grrl sounds associated with the Kill Rock Stars labelthat it was completely ignored by the press but championed by artists from the Beastie Boys to Fugazi. Ive always felt like this record is underappreciated, says Kill Rock Stars founder Slim Moon. A lot of people overlook Elliotts first two recordsthey think of them as a prelude to the bigger albums that followedbut when you go back, you discover theyre really great. This is Elliotts most fragile and delicate music, and we wanted to honor that with a special and beautiful package.For this release, producer/engineer Larry Crane, the official archivist for the Smith family, dug through files, reels, cassettes, and DAT tapes to find the closest sources to the original Elliott Smith first-generation mix downs and spent days to carefully transfer and clean up the audio from the Umbra Penumbra high-quality cassette provided by Casey Crynes. There are fan-traded MP3s out there of this show, but when people hear what I was able to extract from this original tape, theyll be shocked, says Crane.The Umbra Penumbra show gives a sense of the contrast between Smiths live and studio approaches. He was goofier on stage, making jokes and messing with his own words, says Gonson. He worked the words very carefullyhe was very admiring of Joni Mitchell and how she wrote. So it was fun, youd hear a song and then it would change. What emerged from this challenging creative evolution was a set of songs with the intimacy and intensity of an acoustic-based singer-songwriter and the gut-punch power of a rocker.Smiths joy and connection to the creative community in Portland, his home at the time, is beautifully documented by the photos and reminiscences in this new package. A few years after Elliott Smith was released, the singer himself looked back on the album that in many ways laid the groundwork for his image and his triumphant, ultimately tragic career. I think that record gave me a reputation for being a really dark, depressed person, he said, but I think Im just about as happy as all the other people I know. Which is occasionally.