Roman Candle recording house — Portland

In late 1993 Elliott Smith moved into the basement of a shared house in Southeast Portland — at the corner of SE 29th Avenue and Taylor Street — where he recorded his debut solo album Roman Candle entirely by himself, using DIY recording techniques under the stairs. The album was released in 1994 on Cavity Search Records, a Portland independent label, while Smith was still a member of Heatmiser. It announced a solo voice that was completely distinct from his band work: quieter, more intimate, more direct about the interior life of a person who was finding the world genuinely difficult.

Roman Candle was recorded on a four-track without a budget, and the constraints of the format shaped the sound — the slight hiss, the close microphone placement, the sense of someone recording in a private space with no audience in mind. Smith's guitar playing and his vocal harmonies were already fully formed: the intricate fingerpicking, the doubled voice, the ability to hold a melodic line against a complex chord movement. Songs like 'Last Call' and 'No Name #1' set the template for everything he would record for the following decade.

The house at SE 29th and Taylor is a private residence in the Buckman neighbourhood of Southeast Portland. The neighbourhood, like much of inner Southeast, has changed considerably since the early 1990s when Smith was recording there — rents have increased, demographics have shifted, many of the venues and studios of his era are gone. The house itself, where the sound of his solo career began under the stairs of a shared rental, remains standing.