Jimi Hendrix — Valleys Of Neptune

If much of Valleys Of Neptune sounds familiar, it is. Although it's comprised of previously unreleased studio recordings that had been carefully hidden away by the Hendrix family, many versions of these songs — particularly live recordings — have been widely available for some time.

Still, when it comes to mining a dead star's leftovers one could do far worse. The glacial blues sludge trio of "Hear My Train A Comin'," "Red House" and "Crying Blue Rain" could've smoked out basement rec rooms like nobody's business if they were released on the same side of vinyl in 1969.

Equally interesting is the instrumental cover of Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love." It was no doubt a tribute to guitaring peer Eric Clapton, but in light of Clapton's decades-in-the-making decline into vanilla buffoonery, the fuzzed out sonic adventure of the track ends up being a definitive fuck you from the grave as to who was the preeminent axeman of that era.

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