LOOSE ENDS

This is the third posthumous Hendrix album and as far as I'm concerned can be considered as his sixth studio one. The line-up of musicians is a combination of the ''Experience'' and the ''Band Of Gypsys''.

It is also true to say that there are no jewels in here. Some good tracks here and there like the opener ''Come Down Hard On Me Baby''.

But there are also some painful moments (''Blue Suede Shoes''). During more than half of the song, Jimi is doing some sort of a studio repetition which is totally useless. When the band starts with the true song, it is an absolute massacre of this great rock'n'roll tune. It is quite strange when one knows how good the live rendition is available on ''In The West'' for instance. Press next, really.

This is also a short album (some thirty five minutes). When you consider the huge amount of fillers, there was hardly any reason to release such a work IMVHHO. Fortunately, it was a disaster in terms of sales as well.

Still, the long ''Burning Desire'' is another of the good songs featured on this rather average effort. Not a great and memorable song, but a decent one to be honest. Amongst some of these crappy numbers, it should be considered as a highlight.

The version of the legendary bluesman Muddy Waters ''Hoochie Coochie Man'' is quite decent to tell the truth, even if at times Jimi seems to be a bit unfocused. I am not overwhelmed by this instrumental version of ''Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)''. But the original one couldn't bring to heaven either.

This is the last recording from the Michael Jeffery era. He will die in a plane crash in '73. And the Hendrix saga can go on from there...

Two stars. Be aware though that this rating is provided by a Hendrix fan. Very few alien people would be so generous.

Well, the one sincere thing about this album is its title: Loose Ends. Because indeed it is a patchwork of some Hendrix studio sessions (rehearsals), and they're not the first rate, I must say.

It seems like the album editor glued pieces of tape as a jig-saw puzzle - and provided enough material, length-wise to be published as an album. It meets that requirement, if nothing else.

It's a tricky thing with posthumous albums: they're part of artist's official discography, but you can be almost certain the artist himself wouldn't do it that way. Compilations are another story; you can simply dismiss them as an attempt to gain extra money (although there are some good ones too).

Some tracks from 'Loose Ends' (see? I'm refusing to call them songs, because some of them are not complete songs) are taken from previously released material, some are rehearsals that end with a fade-out, some are instrumental versions of known-songs, there's a blues standard...

The blues standard is good old Willie Dixon's 'Hoochie Coochie Man' and it's decent, even if a bit sub-par in vocal delivery (Jim could had it better certainly). Jam 292 is exactly what it name suggests, Blue Suede Shoes is...wait. It's specific. Half of the songs is Jimi explaining to the drummer (Mitchell or Buddy Miles? tracks are a mixed bag with various musicians) how to play the song, insisting only on 'cymbal and snare' in an old fashioned-way. I have to admit Jimi's trademark guitar sound and approach doesn't feet well with such an approach. It ends with a fade-out, implying that a jam continued for who knows how long. That's the material we are dealing with here. It might be interesting to Hendrix fans who are interested in knowing how was Jimi working with his colleagues - it could be aimed at fans that are musicians, I guess. Poor Perkins. First a certain truck driver took his song and became famous, and then he experienced numerous butcherings of it. Including this one. I'm sure Jimi wouldn't like it to be published neither.

'The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice' is the same as the original. If there are some minor differences, I can't trace them. But I never understood this one to be frank, it seems like a quite noodling cacophony.

Everything else is quite forgettable, except for 'Burning Desire' that stands out of the crowd: I like this one a lot (was headbanging on it in my teens) - it's powerful, with grinding guitar, ascending in melody, tempo and energy, building up on blues-driven madness while Jimi shouts 'burning desire, all around electric chair'. Angular, unusual, and yet so distinctly marked with Jimi's signature. It's worth all the points for rating of this unsuccessful album ,the other one being 'Blue Suede Shoes', perhaps for its educational value, but certainly not for wider audience.