There is something behind the fragility and darkness of Elliott Smith that elevates his music to a place reserved only for the most crucial of musicians. The Brian Wilson’s and John Lennon’s of this world – two people who just happen to be all over ‘Either/Or’.

Although not a commercially successful album, it plunged a delicate Smith into the peripheral of a mainstream audience who failed to notice. With three tracks used in the Oscar winning film Good Will Hunting, it marked the moment he stepped out of the basement and quite literally stood on the world stage.

Listening to the album twenty years on from its release, one of the most beautiful things about it is the therapeutic optimism that lingers near its edges. An overtly dark songwriter who tended to reflect the genuine anguish of his own life in his music – the shimmering brightness, and more pop feel, to Smith’s third album allow for a more joyous insight into one of the greatest, most undervalued songwriters of a generation.