The last note recorded for Are You Experienced had barely decayed before The Jimi Hendrix Experience were back in the studio to begin work on their second album. Any other group might have been creatively spent after making a debut as consistently spectacular as the Experience's, but the Experience seemed even more fired up on their second album, not just to play with their usual exuberance and imagination but to fully explore the possibilities of the studio. They still mostly kept the arrangements down to the usual power-trio stuff, but the tape and effects manipulations on things like "If Six Was Nine", "Castles Made of Sand", and the daffy "EXP" showed how much Hendrix enjoyed playing the mixing board like a fourth instrument.
The vibrant psychedelics of Axis: Bold As Love were most apparent in the stereo mix. While even The Beatles were still a bit two-channel-phobic, Hendrix and whiz-engineer Eddie Kramer delighted in sweeping the channels around to maximize the disorienting textures. Not that the second Experience album was all unbridled weirdness. Hendrix's songwriting had also reached a new level of maturity with such jazzy, introspective pieces as "Castles", "Little Wing", "Up from the Skies", "Bold As Love", and "One Rainy Wish". With the awesome, and awesomely underrated, "Wait Until Tomorrow", he started toying with the funkier sounds he'd continue to explore throughout the rest of his tragically brief career. Noel Redding also got his chance to display his budding songwriting skills with the pretty damn good "She's So Fine", which has a real Disraeli Gears vibe.
Since Axis followed so quickly on the tails of Are You Experienced?, there wasn't much in the way of leftover material to clutter the vaults. But because it's such a creative, wonderful record, it still makes for a terrific multi-disc box set. The new deluxe edition of Axis: Bold As Love, which loses its Axis for a more direct title, includes a newly remastered version of the core album in stereo and mono by Bernie Grundman and multiple supplementary discs of demos, sessions, stage performances, B-sides, TV appearances, and one proper outakes.
For comparison I had the George Marino-mastered edition of the stereo Axis: Bold As Love. That 2010 mastering sounds louder and more open than Grundman's 2025 one to me but not quite as warm. The mono, while not my preferred mix, sounds superb, as multi-dimensional as a single-channel mix can be. Hendrix's voice is warm and present but well integrated into the mix...and "EXP" is mercifully shorter than the stereo mix.
Regarding the supplementary sessions and so forth, most of the ones on the fourth LP are instrumental backing tracks, which may be interesting listens because the Experience's playing is always worthy of closer inspection, but I personally tend to find that backing tracks warrant few repeat listens. Nevertheless, a radically different, more aggressive early take of "Castles Made of Sand" is fascinating.
Fortunately, eleven of the 28 tracks on discs three and four are complete with vocals. Perhaps the most noteworthy one is a rare, less languid demo for "Up From the Skies" that begins with a strange snippet of "Stone Free", which Hendrix sings through his wah-wah peddle. There are also demos for "Ain't No Telling" and "Little Miss Lover" that don't differ as much from the finished versions, and the album's one fully formed outtake, "Mr. Bad Luck".
My favorite tracks on these supplementary LPs deal with the period single "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" b/w "Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice". These include instrumental backing tracks and original mono mixes for both sides, as well as a fabulous stereo mix for the flipside, one of Hendrix's zaniest and most purely fun recordings. There's also a stripped down mono early take of the A-side complete with vocals that sounds like the best live version of "Midnight Lamp" the band ever played.
For genuine live tracks, I direct you to the fifth disc of Bold As Love. Well, mostly genuine, since it includes a couple of canned versions of "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" from old TV shows. One is at least worth hearing for the host's hilarious blunder when he begins playing the wrong track, a tinkly, corny pop number that earns a groaning "Oh man...I don't know the words to this one" from Hendrix. Otherwise, it consists of true Experience performances, the most substantial being a superb show in Stockholm from September 1967 that was previously released on the Stages box set and is making its vinyl debut here. This set really sounds fabulous, and I'm impressed by how well balanced each instrument is and pleased by how thoroughly I enjoyed it.
Across the board, the vinyl is flat and noise-free. There is no inner groove distortion.
Bold As Love also includes a Blu-ray with a new Dolby Atmos mix of the core album, which I guess is intended for people who can only appreciate music if it sounds like the tambourine is being banged by their ankles and the bass amp is sitting on their ceiling fan. I'm not equipped for this latest audio gimmick, so I cannot comment on it. The Blu-ray also includes the common stereo and mono mixes for you audio neanderthals.
The packaging is quite nice with a redesigned cover for the whole set, which utilizes a dragon drawing Hendrix did when he was a kid instead of the familiar repurposed India art he loathed. The mono LP uses an alternative cover design originally used for the 1967 French release on Barclay Records. A booklet full of photos, artwork, essays, and track-by-track notes finishes off Bold As Love in appropriately colorful fashion.
