Harrison: `what a great singer, what a great player'. (Talent).

George Harrison is hardly the first artist to be afforded a posthumous release, but few have had such control over their final recordings as the Beatles legend.

Just over three years after his death, the last musical outpourings of John Lennon reached the public arena as six tracks on the Milk & Honey album with Yoko Ono. While they contained the odd gem or two, notably Nobody Told Me, the roughness of some of the vocals indicated this was very much still a project in working at the time of Lennon's senseless killing.

In contrast, Harrison, knowing his time was running out, had the power to shape his musical epitaph exactly as he wanted it. "It's almost as if my dad had it mapped out ... and we were trying to figure it out," notes his son Dhani who, with long-time Harrison associate Jeff Lynne, was given the tricky task of completing production of the 11 tracks that make up the forthcoming Brainwashed (out November 18).

Dhani adds they were very conscious "not to impose in any way" anything on the album which Harrison was working on up to two months before his death last November, although he confesses that he may have "poshed up" the album a bit too much for Harrison's liking.

Capitol Music UK president Keith Wozencroft, whose company is releasing the album with Harrison's own Dark Horse Records, was unsure what to expect when approaching the album, but believes the result is a "gorgeous and beautiful-sounding record". "I thought whether it would be a collection of pieces at different stages of work, but what we've got is a fantastic, brilliant production that shows all the qualities George Harrison has given us over the years. There's a lot of emotion, ...