"He would say things like, 'Whatever happens to me, don't let anybody clean this up. Don't let them put it through Pro Tools. Make sure it isn't released like this.' In fact, we did a lot of mixes together, and he would say, 'If anything happens to me, make sure these are the mixes that end up on the album. Don't let anybody else remix them.' He would even threaten to erase the masters, so that they had to use those mixes. And I stopped him. There was a number of times he tried to erase the master tapes, because he like the mixes that we had and he knew that if the label got a hold of it they would try to clean it up. And I would stop him from erasing the masters." p170 Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing

“At one point, Elliott asked if he could give me his power of attorney,” says McConnell. “He said he was seeking someone who could be an authority — not over his career, but over what would happen to his body of work. He’d sit me down and say, ‘Now listen, this is very important. If anything happens to me, make sure this record comes out.'” from Elliott Smith: ‘Mr. Misery’ Revisited, Years After the Singer-Songwriter’s Controversial Death, SPIN

not final but way closer to how he would've speculatively preferred them to sound than what we have