Back in the day I used to listen to this compilation a lot less often than First Rays of the New Rising Sun (I believe I got both CDs for Christmas 2000), but today I recognize South Saturn Delta as the superior disc. It solves the redundancy problem of First Rays, all of whose tracks were already issued on the 1st 3 posthumous Hendrix albums: about half the songs on South Saturn Delta were previously unreleased. When it comes to compilations, I much prefer rarities albums to best-ofs. The problem with rarities albums is that they can be rough affairs full of minor detritus like outtakes, remixes, jams, & demos. Perhaps it's a tribute to Jimi's artistry that even his castoffs are intriguing & listenable, but at any rate, only a few of this disc's inclusions seem to be there just to fill out the tracklist.
Among the demos, we get the solo acoustic "Midnight Lightning" (as close as Jimi ever got to a pure Delta blues, though he can't seem to help incorporating his psychedelic leanings into the picking); an early version of "Angel," here titled "Sweet Angel," played over a primitive drum machine; a bassless instrumental demo of "Little Wing," which sounds more like what would become "Angel"; & the title track, Jimi's first attempt to incorporate a horn section into his sound. Hearing Jimi trade solo bars with the saxophone is a tantalizing tease of what might have been.
This disc's versions of "Little Wing" & "South Saturn Delta," both previously unreleased, are also examples of the frequency of instrumentals on this album. In addition to those, we get the funky "Midnight"; "Tax Free," with its tempo changes & absolutely huge reverbed drum production; & a longer version of "Pali Gap" than what appeared on Rainbow Bridge. The latter is 5 minutes of pure indulgent lead guitar wizardry, with Jimi traveling through a series of tone, mood & technique shifts over the course of multiple overdubs.
Including "Tax Free" & "Midnight" from War Heroes makes sense because this compilation is emphasizing instrumentals, but I think "Bleeding Heart"'s inclusion is unnecessary. The muffled Chas Chandler mix of "All Along the Watchtower" is superfluous too--all it really does is make us grateful for Jimi's album mix that dials down the 12-string in order to unbury the lead guitar. I understand why "The Stars that Play With Laughing Sam's Dice," a silly little piece of noisy psychedelia, is included here, but I don't particularly like it. Those 3 quibbles aside, though, South Saturn Delta is a Hendrix connoisseur's curio cabinet, & does a much better job of justifying its existence than this sort of affair usually does.
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