From a Basement on the Hill

Recorded between 2000 and 2003, the album was incomplete when Smith died. He had more than fifty songs on tape or hard drive and had finished mixing nine. His family hired Schnapf, who had produced Either/Or, XO and Figure 8, and the engineer Joanna Bolme to complete the mixes, and fifteen songs were chosen with the estate keeping the final decision. Bolme said they added nothing to the recordings. Pretty (Ugly Before) had come out as a single on Suicide Squeeze in August 2003, and Coast to Coast features poetry by Nelson Gary.

It was released in the UK by Domino on 18 October 2004 and in the US by ANTI- the next day, and debuted at 19 on the US chart with 43,000 copies sold, his highest placing there. Metacritic gives it 88 from 37 reviews. Kill Rock Stars reissued it in 2010 alongside Roman Candle.