The key to
Fragments -- Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series, Vol. 17 lies in how the new remix of the 1997 album is described in the box set's promotional material. This new version is supposed to sound "more like how the songs came across when the musicians originally played them in the room," a sideways swipe at the noir patina of
Daniel Lanois' production that also reveals how
Bob Dylan spent these years chasing a muse he couldn't quite catch.
Fragments documents how he kept playing and playing these 11 songs, sometimes tweaking the arrangements, sometimes changing his execution, but usually searching for a performance that captured precisely the right vibe. Given that
Time Out of Mind revived
Dylan's career, winning the Grammy for Album of the Year as it opened up a third act for the troubadour, it would seem that the singer/songwriter accomplished his goal with the finished record, yet the murkiness of the album nagged at
Dylan. This new mix strips all that mud away, leaving an album that sounds like a precursor to
Love & Theft and
Modern Times: a road-weathered band whiling away the hours at a haunted juke joint. The rest of
Fragments consists of alternate takes and live cuts where
Dylan keeps hammering away at these songs, occasionally taking a stab at a tune that didn't make the album, such as the previously unreleased ballad "The Water Is Wide," but usually trying to find the right feel. This repetition is accentuated by the recycling of a disc of alternate takes and live versions from this era previously released on
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: it's a lot of samey-sounding material to wade through just to find a slightly different version of "Mississippi." While the remix is instructive, offering insight into
Dylan's intentions and making
Time Out of Mind seem less like an outlier in his discography, this set is ultimately for the hardcore heads, who don't mind hearing minute variations on familiar themes. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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