tracks with substitute bassist Flea hint at newer, greater things -- without quite delivering.

Jimi Hendrix completed just three studio albums in his lifetime. The guitarist's death, in September 1970, and the prolonged manhandling of his legacy mean that the bulk of his life's work -- demos, live tapes, unfinished recordings -- has been treated shabbily over the decades: cherry-picked for compilations, deleted, reissued, re-reissued with every change in stewardship. "South Saturn Delta" is less of a mess than its predecessors, combining tracks from "Rainbow Bridge," "Loose Ends" and "War Heroes" with previously unissued material that is revealing, although not always in the way the compilers intend. The instrumental sketch of "Little Wing" and the early mix of "All Along the Watchtower" prove that there was magic as well as mania in Hendrix's obsessive studio ways. But "Sweet Angel" (a '67 demo of "Angel") and "Midnight Lightning," cut solo as a Venusian-delt