The limited edition 4-CD Deluxe Edition of Chris Cornell holds 64 songs with 11 recordings previously unreleased from all stages of Chris’ career including Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Audioslave and his solo works. Creative Director for the project is Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog).
This four-CD set contains 112 performances by the Trio from 1938-1941, radio transcriptions made especially to be played on the air. The early trio is instantly recognizable and, although there is a greater reliance on group vocals and guest singers (including Bonnie Lake, Juanelda Carter, Pauline and Her Perils, and the Dreamers) rather than on Cole's solo vocals, the music is not all that different from what the King Cole Trio would be playing a few years later when they became much better known.
Mental Train: The Island Years 1969-1971 is a deep dive into the wild, wooly years before Mott the Hoople discovered glam. In other words, it's Mott the Hoople before they had anything resembling a hit but were still one of the hardest, heaviest, and weirdest rock bands to roam the land – and one of the most prolific, too. This six-disc box set covers a mere three years, but it was three years where they released four albums, piling up B-sides and other strays along the way. Mental Train rounds up what seems to be every surviving scrap and adds them as bonus tracks to Mott the Hoople, Mad Shadows, Wildlife and Brain Capers, and presenting two discs of non-LP material: a disc of unreleased music and a disc of live material…
The second box in as many years of a truckload of obscure British psychedelia. Here are ten more CDs' worth of serious rarities by some bands that barely scratched the surface of the British freakbeat scene during rock's golden era, and a few who went on to other things. In all, there are 128 cuts here, all compiled and annotated by Phil Smee – of Perfumed Garden fame (also issued by Past And Present). While some of these acts, such as the Poets, the Human Instinct, Outer Limits, and Denny Laine left marks on the scene, as did mod bands such as les Fleur De Lys and the Buzz; many others came from the swamp and returned with only these few minutes of glory for all of their efforts.