Status report!

Where are we with archives Volume 2?

In 2016, Young unveiled his latest plans for Archives Volume 2. “It’ll be my entire archives on a website,” he told us. “You can listen to music, and you’ll see where albums are that are pencilled in, not finished. From throughout a 40- or 50-year span, you’ll see unfinished records behind you, in front of you, right now, way in the future.”

According to Young’s manager Elliot Roberts, this latest, much-anticipated volume should “surface in 2017”. So far, this has yet to transpire – although the rumoured release of Hitchhiker suggests he is at least closing in on it. In fact, over the last few years, Young has steadily released music thought to feature in the period covered by Archives Volume 2. These included a long-soughtafter reissue, Time Fades Away, which formed part of Young’s Official Release Series. Following a familiar pattern, this was due initially for release on Record Store Day in April 2014, before getting bumped back to RSD’s Black Friday in november, with the delay cited as being “due to several other projects Young has in the works that he wishes to focus on”. Chief among these, presumably, were Storytone – as well as a new director’s cut of his 1982 film, Human Highway, which appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival before arriving on Blu-ray in 2016, accompanied by Young’s 1979 concert film, Rust Never Sleeps.

Of course, Young’s fans have grown accustomed to waiting. But Archives Volume 2 promises something of a motherlode from his perceived “golden era”. neil and his associates have dropped mouthwatering hints about an alternate version of

Time Fades Away, outtakes from the Tonight’s The Night session (perhaps featuring a guest appearance from Joni Mitchell),

Dume, a compilation made up of tracks from the Zuma era – and, yes, complete versions of the lost 1970s albums discussed in this article.