One more relic of the Hendrix civilization

Jimi Hendrix, a guitar-riff master, instrumental virtuoso and musical revolutionist, leaf us a huge legacy that we are unable to measure, or value in its full scale. Now that we are living in 2010, and several decades have passed after his death, what else can we require or expect from the great musician? It occurred that even nowadays the music market may offer us a new Jimi Hendrix album. And this is Valleys Of Neptune, a record released by the Experience Xendrix company. It is owned by the legend’s stepsister named Janie. This CD features twelve tracks. They are peculiar due to the fact that every one of them was recorded by Jimi and his band The Experience shortly before the outfit’s collapse. This world is one more relic excavated to tell us something else about one of the most outstanding musicians and his art that formed a whole separate civilization named Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix means perfect

The songs off Valleys Of Neptune were collected separately from different sets made by Jimi during his working with The Experience. By that moment, the celebrated guitarist seemed to have used every single advantage of that cooperation; and some of the compositions clearly demonstrate his desire to work individually. You can hear it particularly well when Jimi rages through the drums and bass sections with his blues solos specially put ahead of the other instruments as if he was trying to get out of the music played by The Experience. Hendrix’s most loyal fans will recognize some of the presented songs because they might have heard them, named differently, before. The best known pieces are Stone Free, Fire, and Red House. However, this album has all the tracks mixed so that they sound to make you feel standing in the first row almost reaching the star. The rest of the material is worth listening at least because this is Jimi’s material. Even when he is straightforwardly improvising or fooling around with his guitar, his performance drives crazy. These songs are impossible to form an integral stylistic unity for eve their own existence is the result of Jimi Hendrix’s creative research and experimentation.

Genius has no rating

How can we rate a wok of a genius, if this is the genius who has set the bar for all the others to try to reach? What is the scale, the system of rating for us to use to evaluate Jimi Hendrix’s songs, if even the best pieces performed by his follower were made with the focus on his own music? Valleys Of Neptune does not need a thorough analysis, criticizing or studying. What this album needs is your listening because it is made to bring you a sheer pleasure. The given studio work is just an unexpected present to the great guitarist’s fans, one more walk with the legend. This is not the artist’s best or worst effort. You will be wrong to say that Jimi’s discography would suffer a great loss without it as it is full of masterful examples of rock-music. But will there be a single Jimi Hendrix fan who will say this album should not be in his CD collection? This because you are always ready to have another record of your favorite artist, one like Jimi, even if you have already got a great lot of CDs. Those unfamiliar with this kind of music may easily skip this release. But those who love this guy’s music and rock-music in general, will certainly not regret the time spent on Valleys Of Neptune.

Alex Bartholomew
15.03.2010