Before Nirvana, there was Kurt Cobain, the weird 21-year-old punker kid. And what was this incarnation of Kurt doing before he started smelling like Teen Spirit? Making insanely bizarre mix tapes and calling them "Montage of Heck." Speaking of … we found that mix tape, which has been buried under piles of what-not for 26 years, for you to listen to!

Before Nirvana, there was Kurt Cobain, the weird 21-year-old punker kid. And what was this incarnation of Kurt doing before he started smelling like Teen Spirit? Making insanely bizarre mix tapes and calling them "Montage of Heck." Speaking of … we found that mix tape, which has been buried under piles of what-not for 26 years, for you to listen to!

When Kurt made "Montages of Heck," he had a well-known fetish for putting together diverse mix tapes and freakish, wacked-out sound collages. But if regular mixt tapes are meant to highlight the juxtaposition between different types of music, Kurt's were that, on crack, sprinkled with star dust and lit on fire with solar flare radiation. What we're trying to say, is it's real "experimental."

Kurt assembled the thing using a 4-track cassette recorder in 1988.  It features sounds from Kurt’s wide-ranging collection of LPs, mutated radio recordings, pieces of early Nirvana demos, and sounds created or recorded by the man himself. The list of artists that Kurt appropriated for “Montage of Heck,” is fairly panty-dropping, especially considering how he was a 21-year-old at the time without access to the Interwebz.

And as for what it sounds like … we'd put it somewhere in between getting sucked into a black hole that mysteriously appeared in the mosh pit at a punk show, what radio waves sound like to space aliens, and the stuff your mom told your other brother to turn down in 1993 before she kicked him out for egging his own house.

That in itself makes "Montage of Heck" pretty damn awesome, but it wasn't awesome enough, think about this. Apart from whatever anonymous donor submitted the mix tape to the media, you're one of the few people who's hearing new material from fucking Kurt Cobain. And if that doesn't make it somewhat intimate and nostalgic for you, you should see a nurse about lightening your sedative load for the day.

Here it is in all it's WTF glory:

And here's a full list of artists he sampled for it.

“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)

Kurt actually made two versions of “Montage of Heck,” which actually very independent from one another, even though they have some of the same audio material in common. You just heart the long stereo version, but you can check out the shorter version as well as some more technical info on on the tracks over at United Mutilations.