Music
Nirvana rarities collection will include a comedy sketch by Kurt
by Jeremy Mersereau
August 6, 2015
The massive collection also features "thrash to ragtime to everything in between."
Looks like audio skits aren’t just for hip-hop artists from the ’90s anymore: Kurt Cobain is about to get his very own dedicated skip track.
A companion soundtrack to the recently released Cobain documentary, Montage of Heck, is set to be released in November alongside the home video version of the movie, and will feature a dozen unreleased Cobain recordings alongside “audio montages,” tracks of Kurt talking, and a “sketch comedy routine featuring Kurt voicing all the characters.”
Brett Morgen, the director of Montage of Heck, put together the compilation himself by perusing 107 unmarked cassette tapes left in Cobain’s home, which contained more than 200 hours of recordings. He told Billboard that the unreleased material on the album runs the gamut from “thrash to ragtime to everything in between” but that most of it will “be in space that will be familiar to Nirvana fans”. He also notes that the compilation will form “a lighter portrait of Kurt than one might expect. You really get a sense of how happy he was simply by creating himself.” Hey, I know the feeling: I’m always happiest when creating Kurt collages out of old magazines by myself in my bedroom.
It’s a great time to be a Nirvana fan: 17 unreleased alternate mixes and demos recently leaked online from an unknown source, including outtakes from the band’s Sound City sessions – where they recorded Nevermind – and a demo tape from Kurt’s pre-Nirvana group, Fecal Matter.
Most of the leaked material has since been taken down by UMG, but I’m willing to bet you, the Internet-savvy Nirvana devotee, could find it all with some digging…not that I’m endorsing that kind of shady activity. Oh alright, I’ll get you started: Here’s an early, acoustic demo of In Utero‘s “Pennyroyal Tea” which just cropped up. Recorded in 1990, this version is more measured and low-key than the album version, and might be better for it:
What’s next to surface from the Nirvana vaults? Audio montages? A comedy sketch where Kurt voices all the characters? …Oh, right.
