soniclovenoize 2012 reconstruction of the unreleased album
Side A:
1. Dolly Dagger
2. Night Bird Flying
3. Room Full of Mirrors
5. Belly Button Window
5. Freedom
Side B:
6. Ezy Ryder
7. Astro Man
8. Drifting
9. Straight Ahead
Side C:
10. Earth Blues
11. Drifterís Escape
12. Beginnings
13. Angel
14. Izabella
Side D:
15. Stepping Stone
16. Bleeding Heart
17. Hey Baby (The New Rising Sun)
18. In From The Storm
From November 1969 to August 1970, Jimi Hendrix set out to record the follow-up to his psychedelic odyssey Electric Ladyland. Jimi Hendrix's fourth studio album was to be a double-LP, called First Rays of The New Rising Sun.
After gaining control of Hendrix's catalog, producer Alan Douglas gathered the unfinished tracks and released them posthumously, sprinkled across a number of bastardized Hendrix releases over the next few years. The majority of the tracks were released on 1971's The Cry of Love, with a few more that year on Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes and Loose Ends in 1974. And there the songs remained, uncollected as the final masterpiece he had originally intended. That is until 1997 when The Hendrix Estate gained control of the original master recordings and compiled the material as their take on Jimi's unreleased masterpiece First Rays of The New Rising Sun. But through improper song choice and sequencing, terrible brickwalled and clipping mastering and cheesy Photoshop cover art, Hendrix aficionados pointed out that the album still missed the mark, even under the guise of being official.
This is an attempt to recreate what would be Jimi Hendrix's final album, First Rays of The New Rising Sun. The track sequencing and song selection follows closer to what is believed Hendrix intended, and attempts to be true to his artistic vision in 1970 based on recording histories, interviews and handwritten tracklists. Also, all tracks are taken from alternate sources to avoid the clipping, over-compressed mastering found on the 1997 official release, using mostly vinyl rips of original 1971 pressings. All tracks are tightly crossfaded into four continuous sides of music, as Hendrix might have had intended. The first clues to reconstructing First Rays of The New Rising Sun are a handwritten list of 24 song contenders for the album (included with this torrent for reference). Next is a handwritten tracklist on the back of a 3M tapebox (also included in this torrent) which maps out the tentative track orders for the first three sides of the album. While Side C was obviously uncertain and in a state of flux, Sides A and B seemed to be finalized. Jimi had already decided on the running order of the first disc himself! Our job is already half done! The songs are unified and cohesive and flow together perfectly.
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