July 11 & 24, 1990 Reciprocal Recording Seattle, WA, US

July 11 & 24, 1990 Reciprocal Recording Seattle, WA, US

Artist
NIRVANA
Cobain, Kurt (vocals, guitar)
Novoselic, Krist (bass)
Peters, Dan (drums)
Crew
Endino, Jack (producer, engineer)
Set
[O] Sliver
[X] Sliver
Best available sources
Source Quality Complete Runtime Lowest Gen Tracks Featured Notes

SBD #1a 10.0 No 0:02:12 Official CD (Incesticide)
• Sliver Mastered by Howie Weinberg.

SBD #1b 8.0 No 0:02:13 ANA(X)>CDR(1)>FLAC
• Sliver This source is sometimes referred to as the Colin tape. It features some pre-song ambient noises not found on SBD #1a, but is of inferior sound quality overall.
SBD #1c TBC No TBC Official Video Game DLC (Guitar Hero: World Tour) • Sliver James Murray stem remix.

Notes
NIRVANA recorded the basic tracks for Sliver on borrowed studio time, while producer Jack Endino was mid-session with labelmate, Tad. (4)

Jonathan [Poneman] called up and was begging, We want NIRVANA to cut this one song really fast while they're in town. And is there any way they can use Tad's equipment? And Tad was like, This is our time, we're trying to record something here! Endino recounted. He was kind of testy about it. And I was like, Well, you guys go and eat dinner. I'm sure we can do this in an hour! (1)

With Tad's equipment conveniently rigged, NIRVANA managed to track two takes within the hour. (1) Cobain would then return to cut his final vocal at a second 10-hour session on July 24th. (54)

The spontaneity and simplicity of the recording complemented the song perfectly, It has a massive naïveté to it, Cobain enthused. It was done so fast and raw and perfect that I don't think we could capture that again if we decided to re-record it. It's just one of those recordings that happened and you can't try to reproduce it. (4)

Alex Roberts. June 25, 2009