Over 100 cassettes of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, discovered by the director of the recent documentary film “Montage of Heck,” will be the basis for an upcoming Kurt Cobain “solo album.”
Or so it has been dubbed by anticipating fans.
Montage of Heck director Brett Morgen said the upcoming album “feels like you’re in Kurt’s house, watching him create over the course of an afternoon.” The album is meant by the director as a companion work to his documentary, and will be released along with the home-video version of the film in early November.
Morgen said he immersed himself in over 200 hours of recordings made on 107 unmarked cassette tapes made by Cobain.
Morgen will not have the last word in the tracks that will appear on the album — that privilege belongs to Universal Music Group, which is releasing it.
The album will though, according to Morgen, show many sides of the personality and work of the Nirvana singer, and include ragtime and thrash, as well as audio of Cobain talking between tracks.
Among the non-music offerings will be a “comedy sketch routine” performed by Cobain, who voices all the characters.
Morgen said that the album may be different from what many people familiar with the most popular songs of Nirvana might expect. It is lighter — for example, listeners will know when Cobain is smiling at his own playful lyrics, he said.
All the tracks on the album are just Cobain by himself with a guitar.
“These aren’t multi-track, finished songs or work-ups, but they’re extraordinary, and I think they provide a tremendous insight into his [creative] process,” Morgan said. “I think they further our understanding of Kurt, both as a musician and as a man.”
By Andy Stern