Bob Dylan's latest Bootleg Series release to cover his classic 1965/66 recording

Bob Dylan … Whole lotta listening. Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS

The latest instalment of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series looks set to be most exciting set yet. Ultimate Classic Rock reports that The Cutting Edge 1965-66: The Bootleg Series Vol 12 will include demos, unheard versions and outtakes from Dylan’s “thin, wild mercury sound” period, which saw him release the albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.

Though there has been no official statement from Dylan’s camp or from Sony Legacy, the label that releases The Bootleg Series albums, the report seems credible, based on information the Guardian has seen. Ultimate Classic Rock reports that the set will come in three different versions – a two-CD set, a six-disc edition, and an 18-disc package, which will include comprehensive coverage of the sessions for Like a Rolling Stone.

If the18-CD set manages to come anywhere near 80 minutes of music per disc, it will include around 21 hours of recordings, which would allow scope to include an enormous amount of the material Dylan recorded in during an incredibly fertile period.

The report says the set will include one of the great unreleased sessions of Dylan’s career – the original recordings for Blonde on Blonde, made with the Band, before Dylan scrapped that version of the album and decamped to Nashville to record it with session musicians from the city.

UPDATE: Since the Ultimate Classic Rock report was published, Sony Legacy has confirmed the release.

    The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 - Deluxe Edition brings together for the first time many of the most sought-after recordings of the entire Dylan canon. Here, across 6 CDs, are previously unheard Dylan songs, studio outtakes, rehearsal tracks, alternate working versions of familiar hits – including the complete Like a Rolling Stone session – and more.

    The Best of The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12 is available in a 2CD or 3 12” vinyl LP set and brings together some of the musical high points of the deluxe and super-deluxe collections.

    An 18CD Collector’s Edition of The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 will be available exclusively on BobDylan.com. Limited to a worldwide pressing of only 5,000 copies, this 18CD edition will include every note recorded during the 1965-1966 sessions, every alternate take and alternate lyric. All previously unreleased recordings have been mixed, utilizing the original studio tracking tapes as the source, eliminating unwanted 1960s-era studio processing and artifice. The 18CD edition includes Dylan’s original nine mono 45 RPM singles released during the time period, packaged in newly created picture sleeves featuring global images from the era. The limited edition includes rare hotel room recordings from the Savoy Hotel in London (May 4, 1965), the North British Station Hotel in Glasgow (May 13, 1966) and a Denver, Colorado hotel (March 12, 1966) as well as a strip of original film cels from “Don’t Look Back.”