In 1999, Buddha Records issued an expanded version of the album entitled The Mirror Man Sessions, which features five additional tracks taken from the abandoned tapes.

These songs were characterized by their polyrhythmic structures and psychedelic themes, which marked a progression from the band's previous blues-rooted work on Safe as Milk.

[4] The reason for this remains unclear, though Beefheart biographer Mike Barnes suggests it was probably because the band's record label, Buddah, simply lost interest.

[4] A number of the abandoned tracks were re-recorded in 1968, and released as Strictly Personal, through producer Bob Krasnow's own record label, Blue Thumb.

[3] The song is built on a single two-chord blues riff, and also features an appearance by Van Vliet on an Indian reed instrument called a shehnai, which was supposedly given to him by Ornette Coleman, and which he plays in a different key from the rest of the band.

Also on side one is an eight-minute "Kandy Korn", the second Magic Band tune to reference confectionery, following Safe as Milk's "Abba Zaba".

"[2] Mike Barnes suggests the lengths are partly justified by other bands' long blues compositions of the period, such as the nineteen-minute "Revelation" from Love's Da Capo (1966), or the eleven-minute "Alligator" from the Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun (1968).

"[2] The album reached a peak UK chart position of number 49, although, like all other Magic Band releases, it failed to break into the top 100 in the United States.