Kurt Cobain / Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings / Deluxe Editions
To complement the blu-ray/DVD release of Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck documentary, Universal Music will next month offer a companion soundtrack of previously unreleased raw home recordings that shine a light on Cobain’s creative process…
The material on Kurt Cobain – Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings has been selected by the documentary’s writer-director Brett Morgen from over 200 hours of Cobain’s early recordings on 108 cassette tapes and, in Morgen’s words, it “unfolds like a concept album”. Indeed, it features everything from spoken-word pieces and audio experiments to early demos of Nirvana songs such as Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle and Sappy and Cobain’s private cover version of The Beatles’ And I Love Her.
“I curated the album to create a feeling that the listener was sitting in Kurt’s apartment in Olympia, Washington, in the late Eighties, and bearing witness to his creation,” Morgen told Rolling Stone magazine. “I’m a filmmaker so there is a cinematic quality to it.”
Morgen pre-empts potential criticism for putting out unfinished work, comparing the album to Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series and saying: “It’s not just scraps of discarded, insignificant material. It really is furthering our understanding of one of the most significant artists of our time.”
The Home Recordings will be issued as a 13-track standard edition CD or 31-track deluxe CD which is also available on 2LP vinyl. And for those who want the documentary film and soundtrack and more in one package, there’s the Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck Super Deluxe Edition which includes:
- • Full-length feature film with 48 minutes of bonus interviews on Blu-ray and DVD
- • 31-track deluxe soundtrack on CD and cassette
- 160-page hardback book with extended interviews and images from the Cobain archive
- • Puzzle with collectable storage container, movie posters, postcard and bookmark
All editions of Kurt Cobain – Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings are released on 13 November 2015 with the exception of the 2LP vinyl deluxe edition which follows on 4 December.
Super Deluxe Edition
- • UK Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
- • USA Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
- • CANADA Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
- • GERMANY Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
- • FRANCE Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
- • ITALY Pre-order: Montage of Heck SDE box
Deluxe Edition
- • UK Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • CANADA Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • GERMANY Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • FRANCE Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • ITALY Pre-order: Montage of Heck
2LP Deluxe Edition
- • UK Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
- • USA Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
- • CANADA Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
- • GERMANY Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
- • FRANCE Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
- • ITALY Pre-order: Montage of Heck 2LP
Single CD Edition
- • UK Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • USA Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • CANADA Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • GERMANY Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • FRANCE Pre-order: Montage of Heck
- • ITALY Pre-order: Montage of Heck
CD and 2LP vinyl deluxe edition
- The Yodel Song
- Been a Son (Early Demo)
- What More Can I Say
- 1988 Capitol Lake Jam Commercia
- The Happy Guitar
- Montage of Kurt
- Beans
- Burn the Rain
- Clean Up Before She Comes (Early Demo)
- Reverb Experiment
- Montage of Kurt II
- Rehash
- You Can’t Change Me/Burn My Britches/Something in the Way (Early Demo)
- Scoff (Early Demo)
- Aberdeen
- Bright Smile
- Underground Celebritism
- Retreat
- Desire
- And I Love Her
- Sea Monkeys
- Sappy (Early Demo)
- Letters to Frances
- Scream
- Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle (Demo)
- Kurt Ambiance
- She Only Lies
- Kurt Audio Collage
- Poison’s Gone
- Rhesus Monkey
- Do Re Mi (Medley)
CD standard edition
- The Yodel Song
- Been a Son (Early Demo)
- The Happy Guitar
- Clean Up Before She Comes (Early Demo)
- Reverb Experiment
- You Can’t Change Me/Burn My Britches/Something in the Way (Early Demo)
- Scoff (Early Demo)
- Desire
- And I Love Her
- Sappy (Early Demo)
- Letters to Frances
- Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle (Demo)
- She Only Lies
[…] a whole lot of action this week if I’m honest. The Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck demos set is a new entry at no. 44 while Led Zeppelin‘s remastered version of Mothership is […]
[…] process of a developing genius’ following the bloated and pricey Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck deluxe box set which incorporated Cobain answering the phone, burping and farting among other delights (and […]
Scrap the puzzle and add a couple of doc martens for me instead.
Where’s the 2CD Deluxe edition on Amazon US? They only list the single CD & Super Deluxe editions.
Probably my mistake. I don’t think there is ANY 2CD edition. Both deluxe and standard are just one CD.
Kurt Cobain (March 1992 Flipside Interview): When embarrassing things come out, like stuff I’ve done in my basement on a 2-track or a boombox that are basically just unwritten songs or pieces of songs…when those come out it’s really embarrassing and it frustrates me.
Oh give me a break! These recordings are the type of recordings that artists never want released because they are demo or even below demo quality. Some of the tracks on Lights Out box were terrible. Im amazed Dave and Chris allowed for them to be released (maybe they didnt have a choice with Courtney Love’s greedy claws already out). Wish they’d stop this barrel scraping.
I traded and collected Nirvana-bootlegs already in the 90’s, so Im kinda still interested to hear whats left in the vaults, besides the new edition of Kurt’s private demo-version of Sappy is revelation compared to what has been circulating bootlegs since the 90’s. The bootlegged versions had some serious problems with quality and too much hiss, but this editions sounds just excellent. And that cover from The Beatles that he recorded, “And I Love Her” sounds so eerie and morose with hint of R.E.M.-influences, nice to hear it finally.
I think, that with the wonderful documentary of Montage Of Heck, they surely will try to release and do little cashing on these once again, but I think that all the postcards, jigsaw and stuff are really over the top. Even Kurt would not have liked to see this kind of super deluxe release, some of the stuff was private already in the start and was not meant to be for the average Joe to hear these anyways.
I think that I might stream this first and then maybe buy digital download-edition or evene some physical-edition if I really feel like it.
Im going to do justice for Kurt and only cherish those releases that he accepted.
As much as I like anything released from the vaults (by other bands aswell) I might not really feel like spending that much money on these kind of super deluxe-versions since in the long run I might not like the release that much to justify the price-tag.
Maybe the days of these oversized boxsets are really coming to certain end soon? How soon is now?
All the extra crap is just a massive waste of time. No one will bother doing the jigsaw, posting the postcards, using the bookmark or Blu-tacking the poster to their bedroom wall. Put it in a smaller box (triple gatefold digipak for the CD edition) and lower the price. I’d be interested to hear if anyone actually welcomes this extra junk in box sets.
If you are a Nirvana fan, you want to hear what’s left. If not, then you will never understand why that is.
Put me on the list of people that want to hear what is left of both Nirvana and Kurt’s archives. Do Re Mi with Kurt on drums and vocals and other home recordings like Talk to Me and Opinion. Studio material from the final studio session and rehearsals or soundchecks of unreleased songs. Alternate takes from studio sessions. If you consider this a solo album instead of a companion piece to the film maker’s visual work, you are missing the point as much as they are bypassing the barrel completely.
Balloons (Queen) and now puzzles… Anything to make these box sets more expensive…
Speaking of super deluxe box sets, Paul have you heard anything about Roger Waters the wall box set?
Thanks.
I asked about this today actually… no news though :(
For anyone who hasn’t heard Kurt’s home recordings that have been widely available for years on various bootlegs, this release is really nothing to be excited about. Most of the stuff on here aren’t even demos. They are just someone p***ing around with a tape recorder.
This is not scraping the barrel but digging into the ground underneath the barrel. Ridiculous….
Always wanted me one of them Kurt Cobain bookmarks
A whole slew of some fairly, some very interesting high quality Nirvana demos n session tracks have leaked lately – seemingly rejects from the Lights Out box set. They deserve official treatment more than these lo-fi scraps
This seems to be a little ghoulish and I severely doubt some of it was ever meant for the public to hear.
The scraping of the proverbial barrel…which occasionally does bear fruit in terms of ‘furthering our understanding’ of an artist, but rarely….
Those Seattle grunge types and their jigsaw puzzles, eh?
I would love to be in the room when they decide to add jigsaws, marbles, balloons etc. to these deluxe sets, just to see if they are genuinely taking the piss or actually think it is a good idea.
The formatting is very complex.
It doesn’t appear the Super Deluxe is getting a release outside of North America – probably because the ROTW already has a version of the DVD/blu. This may be a relief because many fans will have already bought the book too.
Then, it’s disappointing that the Deluxe appears to be squeezed onto one disc (despite what the press release says), especially when it appears there is music from the film that hasn’t made the jump.
So the Super Deluxe: 1 CD, a Blu-ray (a version of which has already been released), a DVD (redundant for those who have a Blu-ray), a book (which has already been published) and a smattering of ‘collectibles’. Current price – well over $100.
Having seen Montage of the Heck, I’m not convinced. Il like lo-fi but I will stick with my Daniel Johnston collection.