Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, was released in the UK during the first week of December 1967. In America, it came out in January 1968. Now, it is the subject of a multi-disc box set titled Bold As Love.
Why this puzzling new title – “Bold as Love” is the track closing the album – has been chosen is unknown. No reason for losing the word “Axis” is given in the accompanying book, or in the promotional material: which describes this as a “box set containing [the] landmark 1967 album Axis: Bold As Love.”
This is not the only mysterious feature of this four-CD/one-Blu-ray set. There are other unsatisfactory aspects, some of which are inexcusable. These are noted below. First though, what this is. (pictured right, the Bold As Love box set)
Discs One and Two respectively feature new remasters of the original stereo and mono mixes of the album. Disc Three collects in-progress recordings from the album sessions, as well as alternates of the contemporaneous "Burning of the Midnight Lamp” / “The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice" single. Disc Four teams more in-progress recordings from the album sessions with a familiar-to-fans live show recorded for Swedish national radio on 5 September 1967 and three sets of audio tracks from TV appearances: the BBC’s Dee Time, 22 August 1967; the BBC’s Top Of The Pops, 24 August 1967; Dutch TV’s Hoepla, 10 November 1967. Of these three, only the last is live as such: the BBC recordings are of appearances where live singing accompanied a backing track. Disc Four uncomfortably mixes non-complementary material. The Blu-ray disc collects the stereo and mono masters of Axis: Bold As Love, and a new surround-sound Dolby Atmos mix. The set is out as a five-LP set as well as the digital-disc box. The latter is looked at there.
Although, as pointed out in the book, Hendrix was involved in the original mono mix of the album, the majority of listeners can most likely take or leave it. It has a punch, but stereo is where Axis: Bold As Love is at. The remaster here is startling – so full of clarity, immediacy and presence it initially disconcerts. Once the ear becomes attuned, this is an amazing experience. On the Blu-ray disc, the stereo master is uncompressed, intensifying this fresh encounter with the album even further. It is really is extraordinary. On its own, this remaster would be a significant release.
The studio material on Discs Three and Four is interesting. The band, with producer and co-manager Chas Chandler integral to the process, are heard working through the songs which frequently appear in skeletal form or in different, initial, configurations. This is an area previously deeply dug into by widely available bootlegs such as the In The Studio multi-disc set and various releases on the Voodoo Chile Records label. However, what’s here, according to the box’s book, is drawn from original studio reel-to-reel tapes – mostly from London’s Olympic Studios, where the album was completed. There is also a clutch of fascinating try-outs taped at Denmark Street’s Regent Sounds studio – with an eye on the budget, Chandler would have the band run through new material which had not been tested-out in a live setting, record the results for reference, before shuttling them over – on the same day – to Olympic for the album sessions as such. (pictured left, the Axis: Bold As Love album as it was originally)
Amongst the nuggets from the in-progress sessions – there are no alternates of “If Six Was Nine” – are tracks attempted but not issued: backing tracks for a couple of fully arranged but abandoned and untitled songs, and “Mr. Bad Luck.” What became Axis: Bold As Love was the result of a fluid process. Indeed, it had to be as sessions began soon after debut album Are You Experienced was out and continued in an on-the-hoof, rag-tag fashion at studios in New York and Los Angeles while the Experience was playing dates. Mostly, though, the album was completed at Olympic in October 1967. The stereo mixing was undertaken there on 31 October and 1 November, with the mono version finalised the next day. Disc Three, and the corresponding material on Disc Four, is essential for fans, those very familiar with the album. Maybe not so exciting for the uncommitted.
As for the live and TV material on Disc Four – it’s fine, not too thrilling. During the Swedish radio show, Hendrix sounds distracted, a little dulled, conceivably due to being unable to feed from the – admittedly restrained sounding – audience. Perhaps he had what was coming on his mind. A month later, he, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding really knuckled down to completing Axis: Bold As Love
On the Blu-ray, the main feature is the new Dolby Atmos surround-sound mix. It’s a fair bet that few potential purchasers have a full Atmos set-up with speakers in their ceiling, so it was listened to on a 5.1 surround set up. Unfortunately, committing to this makeover is difficult. Full-sounding tracks such as “Spanish Castle Magic” and “You Got me Floatin’” work sufficiently well as what’s heard is fully present: it, indeed, surrounds. But, in contrast, more filigreed tracks like “Ain’t no Telling” and “Wait Until Tomorrow” have become disagregated, with chunks of the guitar track moving from behind to the front, from side-to-side with seemingly no coherent pattern to the shifts: this is not akin to the stereo panning of the original album. It is off-putting. Hearing a backing vocal extracted from the rest of the track it was recorded for is also distracting. However, the most irksome aspect of the Dolby Atmos version on the Blu-ray is that it drops out: a track plays then, suddenly, there’s a moment of silence after which it resumes playing. The disc was tried with two separate Blu-ray players and it was the same during each playback, occurring around 12 times over the album. Perhaps this fault is not limited to the copy sent for review.
There are other issues. As well as altering the album’s title, the box set does not use the original cover image. OK, it is often written that Hendrix himself did not like the sleeve of Axis: Bold As Love but this is what we and history share. Now, the front and back of the hard slipcase are two drawings done by Hendrix when he was a kid. What do these have to do with the album? Nothing is said in the box set’s book to explain this. Zilch. However, according to the promotional material “the cover art, a drawing done by Jimi when he was five years old, was hand selected by his sister Janie. It was kept by their father, giving it added special meaning.” Janie Hendrix is quoted as saying “I thought it was perfect for this project. It’s a colorful dragon that depicts exactly what the song ‘Bold As Love’ is talking about — the empowerment of each color of the rainbow. I don’t believe there could be a better reflection of the message in the song.” That may be so, but the result of this arcane decision is a box set which is not recognisable as relating to Axis: Bold As Love.
Packaging-wise, the hard slipcase housing the floppy book and the wallet containing the discs (the Blu-ray is loose, in its own sleeve – using the original album cover) slots into a perforated outer card sleeve. This is flimsy, so will inevitably be destroyed when the slipcase is pulled in and out.
In the book, the “Mickie” in Mickie Most is incorrectly spelt “Micky.” All bar one of the photos have no captions. Where were they taken? When? Why is each here? Each page of the book superimposes text on a colour background. Through this, it is just possible to see what appear to be images of studio logs and tape boxes – why can’t there be straightforward, clear images of this foundational information? Design obscuring what is being illustrated is poor. The original album came with a lyric sheet. It would have been nice if a reproduction had been included. The same applies to the also-MIA photo of the Experience inside the original album’s gatefold sleeve. Overall, the design does not evince appropriate respect or thoughtfulness.
With respect to the Dolby Atmos mix, there is no information on where (and how) it was created. Does it employ original multi-track tapes? Or was a current digital-era demix of the stereo album master used to assemble it?
None of this is good enough. Buyers are being asked to pay for a new version of an album they probably already own. Sadly, this is a very frustrating – too-often below par – edition of one of rock’s most important albums.
And – has anyone else had problems with the Blu-ray disc’s Dolby Atmos version of the album?
- Next week: Late Autumn Sunshine – previously unheard 1970s sessions from legendary British jazz pianist/composer Michael Garrick
- More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
- Kieron Tyler’s website
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