Third Man Records announced this week that it’s releasing Images of Life, a three-LP box set of rare and previously unheard recordings by Ted Lucas, the cult Detroit guitarist and songwriter whose 1975 self-released debut has become one of those records that serious collectors whisper about. The set comes out May 22 and includes 1960s band recordings, early solo material, and a complete “lost” album from 1979 produced by Don Was called Impossible Love.

This is a particular kind of cultural moment that keeps happening in music, and it’s worth paying attention to: the recovery and release of work that nearly didn’t exist. Lucas studied sitar with Ravi Shankar, played Motown sessions, formed a series of bands that got dropped by Warner Bros., got his solo demo rejected by the label head Mo Ostin, and then self-released it anyway. That self-released collection became known as The OM Album and slowly built a legendary reputation over decades among people who track down the right records.

Third Man put out an expanded edition of that album last year under the title Ted Lucas, which earned a Best New Reissue from Pitchfork. Images of Life goes further back and fills in the surrounding story: the early band recordings that show where he came from, the solo material that led to the self-titled record, and the lost album that never came out at all.

Don Was producing a “lost” record in 1979 is a detail that sounds like fiction, but the history of popular music is full of records that were completed, shelved, and then rediscovered decades later. What makes the Ted Lucas case compelling is the particular shape of his story: a figure whose influence traveled through the people who found his record in used bins rather than through commercial success or industry connections. The OM Album spread the way the best cult records do, person to person, year after year, until the reputation outgrew the scarcity.

Images of Life is available for preorder now. Rainy Days, the solo material LP, is streaming now ahead of the May 22 release.