Before Nirvana‘s 1989 debut record, Bleach, was Montage Of Heck, a 36-minute collection of ambiguous noises and audio clips collaged together by the late Kurt Cobain. With the Nirvana’s style of grunge embedded into their members’ very being, an outlandish compilation such as this comes to us as no surprise.

Published this weekend by Dangerous Minds, Montage Of Heck was made by Cobain at age 21 using only a four-track cassette recorder and no other forms of digital aide. The eccentric, impressively put together collection of sounds involves hand-manipulated clips of Nirvana demos, radio recordings, bits and pieces of material from Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, Van Halen, and other music by artists within Cobain’s LP collection.

Two versions of this “mixtape” have now seen the light of day: a 36-minute stereo version, and an 8-minute mono version. You can find the stereo version of Montage Of Heck below.

Additionally, you can find (via United Mutations) a list of the featured tracks found in both versions in one way or another.

Kurt Cobain’s “Montage Of Heck” from SpaceEcho on Vimeo.

* “The Men In My Little Girl’s Life” by Mike Douglas
* “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel
* “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” by The Beatles
* “A Day In The Life” by The Beatles
* “Eruption” by Van Halen
* “Hot Pants” by James Brown
* “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” by Cher
* “Go Away Little Girl” by Donny Osmond
* “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver
* “Everybody Loves Somebody” by Dean Martin
* “The Candy Man” by Sammy Davis, Jr.
* “In A Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly
* “Wild Thing” by William Shatner
* “Taxman” by The Beatles
* “I Think I Love You” by The Partridge Family
* “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” by The Barbarians
* “Queen Of The Reich” by Queensryche
* “Last Caress/Green Hell” covered by Metallica
* “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin
* “Get Down, Make Love” by Queen
* “ABC” by The Jackson Five
* “I Want Your Sex” by George Michael
* “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden
* “Eye Of The Chicken” by Butthole Surfers
* “Dance of the Cobra” by Butthole Surfers
* “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” by Butthole Surfers
* “New Age” by The Velvet Underground
* “Love Buzz” by Shocking Blue
* Orchestral music from 200 Motels by Frank Zappa
* “Help I’m A Rock” / “It Can’t Happen Here” by Frank Zappa
* “Call Any Vegetable” by Frank Zappa
* “The Day We Fall In Love” by The Monkees
* “Sweet Leaf” by Black Sabbath (intro)
* Theme from The Andy Griffith Show
* Mike Love (of The Beach Boys) talking about “Transcendental Meditation”
* Excerpts of Jimi Hendrix speaking at the Monterey Pop Festival
* Excerpts of Paul Stanley from KISS’ Alive!
* Excerpts of Daniel Johnston screaming about Satan
* Excerpts from sound effects records
* Various children’s records (Curious George, Sesame Street, The Flintstones, Star Wars).

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Dana Reandelar

If not hunched over her desk writing about music, Dana can be found binge-watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls or condensing long rants to 140 characters. She also writes for Idobi Radio, and is an Off The Record podcast contributor.

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