Neil Young has announced the release of a “lost” album from the 1980s, ‘Johnny’s Island’. The record will be released as part of the musician’s Archives project, which has seen him share a series of unreleased tracks and previously unheard albums. Young recorded the tracks at Honolulu’s Commercial Recorders studio in Hawaii, during the same sessions for his 1982 album ‘Trans’ . The collection was previously called ‘Island In The Sun’ and some of the songs made at the time, such as ‘Like An Inca’, ‘Hold On To Your Love’, and ‘Little Thing Called Love’, ended up on ‘Trans’.
“‘Johnny’s Island’ a complete album now being prepared for release at NYA, includes a majority of unreleased tracks… plus others you may have heard before,” read a post on the Neil Young Archives website. “It’s a beautiful record coming to you soon.”
Stereogum reported that Young previously explained more about the record in a Mojo interview back in 1995. “It was a tropical thing all about sailing, ancient civilisations, islands and water,” he said, adding that he had offered it to label Geffen before ‘Trans’.
In December, Neil made his music archive free to listen to on his website for the rest of 2020, making his entire career’s work online available as a Christmas gift to provide some comfort listening amid the pandemic. He said at the time: “We are doing well here and feeling good. We hope you are well, too. “If you are locked down, we are here for you with hours of listening and cruising around through the years in movies. We want you to enjoy what we have to share at NYA … It’s my music and our lives. Peace.”
