Newly released Jimi Hendrix album, 'Valleys of Neptune,' sparkles

CD review |

Jimi Hendrix is dead. The album is dead. And so the arrival of a new Jimi Hendrix album is an extraordinary occasion. "Valleys of Neptune" comes out this week on Sony Legacy Recordings, part of a flurry of Hendrix-related goods hitting shelves this year as Sony and Experience Hendrix LLC, the local company run by Hendrix's stepsister that manages his estate, commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Seattle-born guitarist's death.

"Valleys of Neptune" — indeed the entire 2010 Hendrix revival — seems angled mostly toward new fans: Check out Julien Temple's video for "Bleeding Heart," the second single from "Valleys of Neptune," depicting a teenager's fantasy of Hendrix playing a modern Glastonbury Festival. Along with this record, reissues of his major albums, and a DVD documentary, a Hendrix-logoed iPod and Hendrix-themed "Rock Band" video game are reportedly set for release later in 2010. There is, after all, a new generation to sell.

But Hendrix love springs eternal — this CD and its detailed liner notes also could reignite the most faded/jaded devotee. "Valleys of Neptune" is less a revelation than reminder: Jimi Hendrix still is and will forever be the coolest rock star of all time.

Most of these 12 songs were recorded in 1969 in London and New York after the Jimi Hendrix Experience's third and final studio album, "Electric Ladyland." In the 18 months leading up to his death in September 1970, Hendrix was in the midst of transition borne of confidence and success. These sessions were his last with the Experience's Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell and first with Billy Cox, Hendrix's old army buddy who'd take up bass duties in Band of Gypsys later in the year.

The heart of the album (if a posthumous collection can truly be considered such) is the title track, a fully finished and commercially unreleased song. It's brief, beautiful and haunting: Hendrix longing for a sort of cosmic release from earthly constraints, cooing, maybe to himself, "rise on, baby, rise on."

Second single "Bleeding Heart" is modeled on an Elmore James blues standard, another rarity that Hendrix takes to improvisational heights; the same could be said for "Ships Passing in the Night." The seven-minute "Hear My Train A Comin' " is scorching, a concert favorite turned in with studio precision. "Stone Free" and "Fire" are far more raw here than their radio-hit counterparts; album-closing instrumentals "Lullaby for the Summer" and "Crying Blue Rain" feel unfinished.

Different versions of these songs have been previously available via Hendrix releases official and otherwise, with varying quality. Here they're finished and newly mixed by Hendrix's go-to studio engineer Eddie Kramer, whose contribution guarantees the significance of "Valleys of Neptune" even if you already own these songs.

Hendrix heads will debate his stepsister Janie Hendrix's profit motive and her shout-out to "our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" in the album credits. Jimi is, after all, one of the most beloved pop artists of all time and, in the wake of his death, extremely vulnerable to exploitation. Even if the details behind "Valleys of Neptune" are murky and the collection itself motley, the core is diamond-bright: Hendrix's music, 40 years later, remains essential.

Jonathan Zwickel: zwickelicious@gmail.com