Bob Dylan 'Fragments, Time Out of Mind Sessions: The Bootleg Series Vol. 17'
Bob Dylan was never known to use the studio as one of his primary instruments. His idea of a recording session was to do just that—to record him in the act of creation. And so, it was puzzling when he chose Daniel Lanois, an inventive sonic sculptor with U2 and Peter Gabriel on his resume. Lanois produced Dylan’s 1997 album, Time Out of Mind, and Dylan disliked the results, even when it won him a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Disc one from the latest installment of the superb Bootleg Series is devoted to a remix of Time Out of Mind with every trace of Lanois’ polyrhythmic high-tech penchants expunged and stripped down to the studs. The resulting tracks are powerful for their focus on Dylan’s ragged voice and a sympathetic cadre of accompanists. The album opens in a haunted mood with “Love Sick,” sung as if by a ghost shuffling down a film noir street. The desperation is raw, and the ambiance recalls Muddy Waters’ spooky early sides for Chess Records. The tempo lifts on “Dirt Road Blues” with a rhythm that rattles like an old car on a county trunk that intersects Highway 61; the white lines separating blues from rockabilly begin to dissolve in the heat.
Loss permeates Time Out of Mind. “Standing in the Doorway” unfolds at an easygoing pace, rustic in the spirit of New Morning as Dylan muses on a failed love whose feeling won’t leave him alone. With its gospel echoes, “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven” is the picture of a fallen world by a man refusing to submit to despair. As Stephen Hyden puts it in one of the essays included in the hardbound book accompanying Fragments, “If the original album remains mythic and enigmatic, this Time Out of Mind puts you in close proximity to the players. You feel their hearts pounding amid the sweaty, sonic murk.”
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Discs two and three gather outtakes and alternate takes from the Time Out of Mind sessions spanning two years and two studios as Dylan chased after the essence of his songs. That the process can be unending is proven on disc four, recorded live at various venues from 1998-2001 and featuring several Time Out of Mind songs sounding different yet again. The final disc is somewhat superfluous with a dozen alternate and live tracks from the months leading to Time Out of Mind previously released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8.
