Surprise! New Axis Release!

Share

On September 9, Hendrix fans awoke to a surprise email in their inboxes from Experience Hendrix, a new box set celebrating The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s acclaimed sophomore LP, Axis: Bold As Love, containing previously unreleased demos and outtakes will be released on November 7, 2025, called Bold As Love:

Experience Hendrix L.L.C. and Legacy Recordings, are releasing Bold As Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on November 7. Produced by Janie Hendrix, original Experience recording engineer Eddie Kramer, and John McDermott, this expansive collection is available as either a five vinyl LP plus Blu-ray, or four CD plus Blu-ray set. The deluxe box set includes the original stereo and mono mixes of Axis: Bold As Love remastered from the original mixes created by Hendrix, the album’s producer Chas Chandler and original engineer Eddie Kramer. Kramer and engineer Chandler Harrod recently created brand new immersive Dolby ATMOS mixes of the entire 13 song album. The box set presents an additional 40 alternative versions, unreleased studio takes, demos, live tracks and television appearances from the album’s gestation and recording period, 28 of which have never-before-seen the light of day. One of these tracks, a previously unreleased October 1967 studio demo of “Stone Free/Up From The Skies [Demo],” has been made available today. Source.

(The full title appears to be The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Bold As Love: The Axis: Bold As Love Sessions, which is quite a mouthful—with far too many colons. Wouldn’t Bold As Love: The Axis Sessions, be much better?)

I certainly did not see this coming. For one thing, it hasn’t even been a year since the release of the Electric Lady box set, a massive project that was years in the making. Nor are we coming up on a significant anniversary of Axis’s release. More importantly, as far as I’m aware, there had been no hints from anyone associated with EH that an Axis set was in the works. (See speculation on this below.) But who can complain? I’m continuously amazed that 55 years after the man’s death, we’re still getting new material—all coming from a period of less than 4 years!

First Listen: “Stone Free/Up From The Skies (Demo)”

Simultaneous with the announcement, EH released one previously-unheard track from the forthcoming box, “Stone Free/Up From The Skies (Demo),” a 2:18 hybrid of Jimi’s December 1966 B-side “Stone Free,” with his newly written “Up From The Skies.”

It’s increasingly rare to hear something so novel from the vault. It’s notable that Jimi reached back to “Stone Free,” reportedly the first song that he ever wrote and which had already been released, as the lead-in. To my ears, this sounds like it was a deliberate edit, rather than an organic transition. (Was this Jimi’s choice, or someone else’s?)

Regardless, this is also yet further evidence that “Stone Free” meant something special to him. As heard in 2000’s The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set, he returned to the song again in the studio in 1969, putting in a lot of work to rerecord it with a different arrangement, and yet unlikely contemplated for public release. Beginning in 1969 and continuing to September 1970, the song, alongside “Spanish Castle Magic,” also became a prominent part of Jimi’s live shows, where he used it as a jam vehicle.

After about 20 seconds of Stone Free, the demo shifts to “Up From The Skies.” This demo version is wildly different from the light, breezy feel of the completed track, and the guitar and bass riffs sound remarkably unlike Jimi’s typical style. It adds another dimension to our understanding, and I would not be surprised if this is the most interesting nugget in the box.

More Previously Unreleased Tracks

We get two full LPs of tracks that haven’t been heard before. It’s hard to tell anything from the track list, but the alternate takes of “Castles Made of Sand,” “Bold As Love,” and “Little Wing” look the most exciting, given the incredible instrumental versions of the latter two that appeared on the Purple Box. For the same reason, the “Untitled Instrumental” tracks are highly anticipated. The other two demos, “Ain’t No Telling” and “Little Miss Lover,” are likely to be the main attraction, however.

Source of the New Tapes?

There’s quite a bit of speculation as to the provenance of the source tapes for this release. It is a near certainty that EH recently acquired at least some of these tapes in connection with a recent auction.

Last year, a fascinating trove of documents and reel-to-reel tapes went up for sale. The seller was Trixie Sullivan, the personal assistant to Mike Jeffrey, Jimi’s notorious manager. According to Sullivan, she snatched everything up from Jeffrey’s London office shortly after he died in a mysterious plane crash in 1973. One tape in the set was highly noteworthy: demo versions of “Up From The Skies,” “Ain’t No Telling,” “Little Miss Lover,” and “Stone Free.” (The listing appears to have been removed by the auctioneer.) Mojo noted that Experience Hendrix was scheduled to view the material. Last week’s announcement seems to confirm that EH acquired it.

A consultant to the auctioneer was quoted in The Guardian as saying, “These versions have never been heard before, circulated or broadcast and are very different in sound and length to the more common examples. . . The experts who have visited and heard the recordings all agree that these are far superior to all the other versions of these tracks.” (Take that with however many grains of salt you wish.)

A natural follow-up question is whether this release includes everything that EH purchased, or whether there may be more to come. But this is likely to be it. The popular view among collectors at the time was that the four demos—reportedly on one 7-minute tape—were the only new items of interest. That view was supported by the reporting at the time. Mojo, citing Eddie Kramer, reported that although the tapes were “all in perfect condition,” most were likely contemporaneous copies of recordings already in EH’s possession. There were also some rumors that the instrumental versions on the tapes were largely uninteresting and likely intended for BBC performances, which required artists to sing live over prerecorded backing tracks.

If I had to speculate, I would guess that EH acquired just the demo tape, the only item of real interest. I would also be surprised if EH simply purchased the tape at auction. Rather, given Sullivan’s dubious claim to ownership and consistent with EH’s aggressive protection of Jimi’s IP, it is more likely that EH and Sullivan reached a private settlement to avoid litigation. To capitalize on the value of the tape and collectors’ interest, EH fleshed out enough material to fill a box set.

Kindergarten Cover Art

The cover art is fittingly bold, a rainbow dragon (or horse, if you ask me) figure on its hind legs, colored in crayon. The coloring style might look familiar to the connoisseur. The press release explains that the art comes from a drawing that a 5 year-old Jimi, kept by his father Al. It’s a very cool choice, and it does go well with the title track. It’s also a welcome improvement from recent covers that looked odd and bore no relationship to the music. (See, for example, 2018’s Both Sides of the Sky). I hope that we’ll see the original version in the liner notes.

Further Thoughts

Lastly, some final, random thoughts as we await the release on November 7:

• LP Sticker Shock: The Bold As Love box set is available now for pre-ordering. The 5-LP set is listed at a price of $142.98! That feels pretty steep, given the amount of filler material and that the full set will be on streaming services. I’ve bought all of them to date, and I’m sure I’ll buy this one too, but that price is hard to justify.

• “Original” Stereo and Mono Mixes: Two of the set’s five LPs are stereo and mono mixes of Axis. While possibly included as filler material, the mono mix is welcome. Original mono copies (particularly the US release) are rare to find and highly sought after, and the mono version is noticeably different from the familiar stereo one.

• Live Material: The last LP in the set, billed as a “bonus,” is an odd choice. It contains the Experience’s performance on September 7, 1967 in Stockholm, an 8-song show that has been widely bootlegged for many years and contained no material from Axis. A much better selection would have been the Experience’s return to Stockholm just a few months later, which included the only known live performances of “EXP” and “Up From The Skies.” Listen to the one-of-a-kind audience tape if you can.

• TV Performances: We also get a couple of BBC performances tossed in to fill out the B-side of the last LP, along with two recordings of “Foxy Lady” and “Purple Haze” from the Dutch TV program, “Hoepla,” that have not been previously released. Though these are unlikely to be earth shattering, we’ll take whatever we can get.

• New “Immersive” Dolby ATMOS Mix on Blu-Ray: We get a third version of the full album. This time, it’s a new mix by Eddie Kramer and Chandler Harrod, a recording engineer who has worked with Kramer on other EH releases. When and if I get my surround sound stereo system working again, I look forward to hearing it.

• Blu-Ray Audio Re-Releases: On November 7, EH will also release new Blu-Ray audio versions of Electric Ladyland and LA Forum 1969. EH previewed this in 2023. But didn’t we get a high quality mix of ELL as part of the ELL box in 2018? Dropping these, with little fanfare, on the same day as the Bold As Love box set also seems strange. Perhaps the hope is that enthusiasts will pick them up alongside the new release.

Heaven Research will return with more reporting on the new release, and a few other things in the works. Subscribe for free, so you don’t miss it.