Number 23 has just handed me his review of the first SOTT Vault CD - being the first Orger review, I think it deserves its own thread. So, without much further ado - here is his full text:

SOTT DELUXE Vault Disc 1

Hi, I got banned, but I’m not bitter. This deluxe edition could take the edge off most woes we experience - like I said before, it truly is an embarrassment of treasures. To think one guy spearheaded all this music, in all its myriad forms/genres, yet still managed to make it sound uniquely ‘him’ is unfathomable to a pretty average person like me. I can’t conceive of any other popular music artist quite as inspired, driven and talented as Prince Rogers Nelson. He’s constantly changing Picasso working within the popular music idiom, a Da Vinci who painted with sound. We all knew it, even when his stock was at an all time low in the late 90s we still knew, but finally the world will have to join us in our awe. This box set is undoubtedly the greatest compilation of music ever released under the banner ‘pop’. How can anything else compare?

This is not hyperbole - to think there’s also one of the greatest albums of all time on discs 1 and 2 is ridiculous - and when you realise the Michael Howe and The Estate could probably have filled another two or three CDs with the stuff that’s been overlooked for this release ... well. How can anything else compare?

This is a box set but there is no box that could contain P - they tried to build one, but when someone is this open and free and polymorphous and completely uninterested in standing still, normal rules don’t apply. Prince Rogers Nelson broke any mould the record industry - and, by turn, the wor;d, tried to suffocate him within. And when he had won the respect of every critic and every artist with SOTT and Lovesexy, when he was undoubtedly the most revered and respected musical artist in the world, what did he do? A natural born contrarian, an agent provocateur who likely saw his mission in life to simply challenge accepted wisdom, he did an 180 degree turn with a massive fuck you to those who would put him on a lofty pedestal of so-called ‘sophisticated’ high art … and did a Batman album. Les enfant terrible, as the French say.

Low brow, high brow, it was all the same to P - if it inspired him, he didn’t give a fuck what people thought. He listened to the voice inside. It’s all he could trust. It brought him from the back streets of north Minneapolis to superstardom. Throughout his entire career, people were judging him by their own limitations. Prince had to create his own reality/realities - the objective one was pretty dull and constrained for him I imagine. He must have felt like a prisoner to mundanity. He was, like Janelle Monae called him, a free motherfucker.

You probably skipped all that shite and just darted your eyes down to this bit. You made the right decision. Here are my - purely subjective - thoughts on CD1 of the three discs containing unreleased tracks. Many of you will disagree with me when you eventually hear it.And you’ll be right too, because everyone who is a Prince fan is right. We just disagree on the small print. But here it is, rattled out very quickly so forgive any poor spelling, bad grammar or just shit overwrought writing. It’s very raw. CD2 coming tomorrow night. Hope it whets your appetites.

1. “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (1979 version)”

We’ve all heard this by now and we all have our own opinions on whether the vocal is 79 or overdubbed in 80/81. For what it’s worth, I’m in the 80/81 camp. To me, it sounds like him experimenting with his chest voice for a potential grand reveal in the Dirty Mind album (I know, there’s the verse in JALAWT, but no-one ever talks about that) but it didn’t quite work. It’s certainly a similar timbre to the snotty/punky full voice in PartyUp, slightly more melodic but that’s likely why this would have stuck out like a sore thumb on DM - and P or C for that matter. It’s maybe just too PC for those records lol. Certainly too mature for those records in terms of theme - ‘I’ll sure as hell try!’ aside. One he threw in the Vault, yet he clearly recognised its depth and quality to dig it out seven years later when he had hundreds of incredible new songs to choose from. To me, that’s pretty fascinating in itself. He didn’t make albums, he made moods. Past, present and future was all happening at once for Prince. Like the universe itself.

2. “Teacher, Teacher (1985 version)”

Prince tossing W & L vault tracks to see what they can layer on there, to see if they can reveal something else in the lyric and mood he couldn’t himself. Surprise me! he probably said in his Jamie Starr voice before strutting off to the club. And this is undoubtedly a successful example of W&L’s whimsical, pallette-swimming, shimmering skewed harmonic sweet/sour cold/warm duality complementing a P skeletal groove and base melody. It loses some of the edge of the original however, by having the girls’ harmony outweigh P’s male vocal - a boy being seduced by a teacher is more interesting and less conventional than the played-out male teacher/female pupils scenario. Not many male writers put themselves in a submissive position lyrically. But musically, compared to the original, the outro’s closing ‘release’ harmony suffers slightly too (P’s nah nah nah - nah nah nah - then his huge harmony vocal wave). It, to me, was far more exhilarating when the song was rawer and it was more prominent in the mix. What provides the emotional release on the original 1999 deluxe release loses something here and the song simply peters out to the fade. To me - you might, and likely do, disagree. Still a great, full mid-80s flowery ruffled-up Revolution vibe though.

3. “All My Dreams”

Undoubtedly, for me, a Prince career highlight and something I always played non or casual fans as evidence of a unfathomably huge mountain of work being produced and compiled behind the scenes. There’s slight added musical elements at the beginning of this version - like tinkling on a pipe with a toffee hammer - accompanying a very slightly longer intro than we’re used to. Apart from that however, it’s the same song that already leaked in pretty good quality many moons ago. Whoever’s working on the master tapes has, to my ears, done a impeccable job bringing out the depth of the acoustic bass and W&L’s etherial, tangental high-end harmonies sparkle, a Northern Lights glow shining and morphing over the entire weird landscape of this magical, indefinable track. The meandering interlude where a distorted, disguised deep-voiced Prince takes his time describes how he is going to fuck someone all night long is hilarious and out there - even with the dodgy submarine metaphor. ‘You can feel every curve, he moans’ - you certainly can if he’s talking about the song’s clarity and fidelity. It sounds fresh as a daisy, timeless, magisterial. A genius at the height of his powers, who believed he could do anything. The jazzy walking bass in the second act of the interlude - when the train whistle appears - truly suggests a journey beginning, or maybe a relationship (marry me today and tonight we’ll make love till the world stops turning’ ‘gentle, but quickly’. Then, and we all know the monent, it turns around with a huge single drum hit then those exhilarating joy fantastic closing harmonies kick in from W&L: ‘Ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh’ before expelling a starsailing farewell with that magical, forever spine-shivering chorus. ‘Goodness will guide us if love is inside us! No child’s a failure until the blue sailboat sails him away from his dreams! Don’t ever lose your dreams!’

4. “Can I Play With U?” (featuring Miles Davis)

For years we had this at completely the wrong speed. And I must say, I preferred it at a faster tempo. It kicks in with a staccato groove that never really locks in - to me - and the idea of having the song’s chorus as simply a build-up to a horn and guitar freak out only works out if it’s a true crazed freak out. It sounds pretty sedate and controlled to me. It’s good and it’s funky, but more time could have been spent on it. It should be wilder, to my ears. And maybe if Miles had been in the studio with him it would have been - Christ, Miles sounds great. Those alien bursts, like frequencies from another galaxy. But then - the song suddenly finds its groove with a weird funky bee bop style instrumental break - then a classic P scream. Now, he’s experimenting with vocal timbres - it comes alive, he’s found The Zone. Miles also seems to be getting the groove - then, suddenly, this fevered dream ends and we float back down to earth with a lighter groove. Until, a multitracked P ‘Oooooooh - can I play with you?’ leads into some astonishing jazz influenced guitar soloing, power bebop grooves … building up to something continually, yet teasing away from it. Funky as fuck guitar, deep funk slap pluck bass enters the mix, drums start getting wilder, everything builds sinisterly, back to a nighttime groove, Iggy ‘I live under glass vibe’, then Prince rap-sings a funky ‘Darlin if u follow me home, this brother gone rob ya house! Get on the dancefloor - baybbaybayabayabababababababababay … can I play wit you?’ A massive scream and suddenly you think it’s one of the best things he’s ever done. And that’s why you should never give up on a P song - sometimes he’s just getting started.

5. “Wonderful Day (original version)”

Purely P. No L&W. The same groove without some of the more colourful, breezy, flower power elements. P rap sings the verses quickly - similar lyrics to W&L overdub version, but different. P delivers it more angsty, less playful, harder - ‘You lose your hunger or your friends/Nevertheless, it’s a wonderful day’ Similar to Play In The Sunshine in theme. P saying he doesn't need anyone to feel great about life. He’s fine alone. The frantic, angsty mood suggests different. Drums and bass are so in the pocket it’s outrageous. The ‘bop a bop bop’ hook is infectious. But it gets even more intense. There’s genuine angst here. This day suddenly doesn’t sound so wonderful - that bass isn’t painting happiness. ‘Nevertheless!’ he shouts - then big major piano chords start to jar with the groove - think we’re meant to feel unsettled by them. A long instrumental them leads to the outdo coda ‘Every get down on the one!’ he shouts, a party of one, ‘It’s a wonderful day’ he falsettos at the end. Not convinced it was, but the artistic result is top tier, raw oddness.

6. “Strange Relationship (original version)”

Again, no L&W, on vocals anyway. I’m guessing they dabbling with the Fairlight’s sitar settings and Jonathan Coleman is contributing to the vibe too. I’ve not heard the original W&L boot for a while and haven’t directly compared it, but it’s definitely different to my ears - groovier. Funkier - deeper. Which makes that exhilarating chorus all the (bitter)sweeter when it kicks in. Middle eastern instrumentation definitely adds depth and wooziness to the verses, but that damn chorus slices open the white gut of pure pop and bleeds stardust. A Fairlight experiment that works wonderfully - would still love to hear the ‘real’ raw original from ’82 though. This is a sickening funfair ride of a tune, a woozy distortion of a toxic relationship - an overdose on joy now making him feel sick, he's been on the rollercoaster too long. The end coda though, sounds very different to previous versions- a weird Germanic, teutonic vibe with an interesting vocalisation ‘Ayyyy’ repeated by P, sounds like it was fed through a Big Muff pedal. Then the timbale groove and sitar drone takes it bellydancing to the end. The ‘Yeah yeah’ outdo coda is extremely distorted in the background in this version - much more to the fore in the original album. A thing of wonder, still. Then, the groove kicks in again - just when the album version ends. This now grooves on, with a new deep oddness, with the main melody appearing once more to anchor everything to Earth. It’s wonderful, he grooves the fuck out it. You wish it would last forever. It then ends suddenly on a really unexpected chord, with sci-fi noises winding down as the mothership lands. A trip.

7. “Visions”

Wonderful. Most of us are already familiar with this, but to me it sounds like snow piling up at a window as an old man inside dies while thinking of his youth. Those playful little notes at the end Lisa adds, the bit where you think it’s going somewhere else, but then it gets real down and blue….then ends. Like all things do. Before they really gets started. But anting any more is simply greed, it’s perfect.

8. “The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (with horns)”

Of course, the song’s perfect without the horns - but I’m digging them. They make the whole thing swing more, make it less of a curio, not as obtuse, roots it in what we know and accept as r&b. It makes it more conventional - and that’s not always a bad thing. It’s a different vibe - not preferable - but welcome, freshens up this tune we’re probably all listened to too much. Eric mutes his sounds, they’re complementary, playful, and sometimes at odds with the main melody but he and P always end up in the same place in the groove. Whether Prince played some of these lines to him on a synth first we’ll likely never know, but I just doubt all of this was improvised on the spot. It’s too concise. And the horns are all the way though. There’s a little lick he does at the ‘my pants were wet’ that’s beautiful and playful - humourous, Eric gets the lyric, he doesn't get in its way. Or tries not to. The outro coda, Eric plays along with the ‘Weeeeeeeel’ with some shimmery warm blasts, but where we get to where the original song ends … it doesn’t. It keeps going past the fade…keeping that groove going with Eric feeding it and vining on it … the song doesn't go anywhere else, but it doesn't need to. It’s the mood that prevails. The drum machine layers more syncopated beats, building, then Eric plays us out. A little organ from P and it’s over.

9. “Witness 4 The Prosecution (version 1)”

Again, some of us have been familiar with this for long, long time. It’s a revivalist rootsy stomp thats heavy, woozy and groovy. Pure Sly. Yet, for me .. P’s voice is slightly too nasally here to pull off the huge courtroom gospel he’s attempting. The Family Stone groove and drums are fantastic, the guitar squeals would melt your face off, but to me it slightly lacks … something. I’m nodding my head constantly listening to it, and I dig the W&L ‘WITNESS!’ embellishment to P’s original, but something’s slightly missing. Those fucking drums though. And the guitar solo at the end …as low as it is in the mix… is as good as it gets for these types of P grooves. ‘In this love AFFAIR!’ at the end where it builds to a crescendo that kind of just overlaps into the ‘witnesss’ choral voices is wonderful. I dunno. It’ll probably be one of my faves in five years, thats how it works with P isn’t it?

10. “Power Fantastic (live in studio)”

Like in the podcast, we hear Prince’s extended instructions to the band. This song was intimate enough without this added drama and tension. ‘Just trip - there are no mistakes. Play anything you want. Go with it. Whatever you want Lisa’ And she does. Then Eric on flute, then Atlanta Bliss, then Bobby Z’s cymbals, drum rolls, everyone moving towards some unknown, mysterious destination. The flute gets wild, the drums pound atonally and unrhythmically, then…it gets quiet. Real quiet. Then ... that descending piano motif enters … leading into one of P’s best ever songs. It’s the Power Fantastic we’re all familiar with a completely new vocal - not too different from the studio take, but with differing melody choices and a rawer falsetto lacking the reverb of the studio overdub. But it’s one that’s more nimble, playful yet experimental than the etherial, showstopping performance we all know. If this is a first take - and it clearly is as we hear him guide the band through ‘bridge’ etc, then bloody hell - the follow up tour to Parade with this band could have been even more extraordinary than SOTT. It sounds like an eternal 4am, the ‘lonely cold’, someone in pain but finding strength in something indescribable, invisible, but there …faith? In God or himself? It doesn’t matter. This is church music - notes finding beauty in the depths of despair, enduring a night where the sun might not rise. ‘Keep soloing’ he says to Eric on the flute. ‘Change’ - then we hear the final chorus. ‘What it is, is what you want and need’. Somehow - this ‘Counter Revolution’ band captured the sound of beautiful, enduring agony in P’s head. ‘Ending’ he says. We hear Lisa’s final descending notes, that stunning coda, where the last note takes ten seconds to ring out. Then, ‘Good. Come in.’ We realise P has been singing it himself with the band elsewhere, individually mic-ed up and, as he always really was, alone.

11. “And That Says What?”

More manic than Madhouse’s most fevered tunes but familiar sound territory to those familiar with those records. A wild sax solo changes up the groove about a minute in and it’s a head-bopper from then on, great in the pocket drumming from P (has to be him, all his traits). Then it grooves with itself for the final minute with some dramatic chord changes, back to the groove, last flourish and it’s over. Too soon.

12. “Love And Sex”

Same song as Sheila’s - I think a poor quality version of this leaked recently. The guitar is a lot more prominent in this mix. A sensual falsetto verse melody is propelled forward by huge power chords and stunning multitracked vocals - then the power wave of a chorus. A topsy turvy thing, this serpentine melody, ‘My legs go weak, it’s hard to speak’ again trying to capture the wooziness of new love. ‘Check me out!’ he shouts. ‘I’ll be speaking my mind!Girls should be girls in a grown up world!’ It’s a huge chorus, a potential hit in waiting - perhaps too conventional for P at the time, and he wouldn’t want to be defined by it. ‘I’m under your hex, all I want is your love and sex’ A guitar solo exhilarates but he doesn't do the cheesy thing and move it up a key, he just layers on the vocals in the multitrack for a final huge chorus. The drums become more prominent in the outro, huge cymbal splashes, maybe Sheila. Ends with ‘sex sex sex sex’ multitrack and some lovely percussion sounds.

13. “A Place In Heaven (Prince vocal)”

I’ve always loved this one since the old Deposition boot and hearing it in this fidelity with the pitter patter drums and childlike tinkles is just candy for the ears. In this era, it seemed P liked to write songs about feeling suicidal juxtaposing the darkness with these nursery rhyme melodies (Wednesday etc) and it’s beautiful. P telling someone not to embrace the darkness, that it’s only perception - you make your own reality. To forget the horror of a world adults have created, to revert how to we were as children. To be naive, to embrace the wonder of the fact that we are on a floating rock circling round a nuclear furnace in the middle of infinity. So ‘let’s not be lazy’ - you get one chance to be a star in this universe. Heaven is in your head. a place on Earth, a Belinda put it. And now, officially, P.

14. “Colors”

This brief guitar instrumental was supposed to lean into ICNTPOYM, I think, on one of the Dream Factory tracklists. It’s great, but is it Wendy? Could be, to these ears. I have no linear notes.

15. “Crystal Ball (7” mix)”

No intro to build tension and mood - it just launches right into ‘Exert lover, my baby - ever had a crystal ball?’ That spindling, winding baseline - playing with your head, teasing with foreboding … otherness. Something’s on the way and its not good. The strings wash in as P suggests making love, sweetening the darkness of the groove but queasily, off-kilter. A rattle goes off. Found sounds appear and disappear. Time is running out, clearly. Susannah harmonises beautifully ‘oh oh oh oh oooo’ leading into ‘dear jesus save us’. Again, something is coming. The end is nigh. Prince gets flummoxed by his girl painting erotic images as all hell is breaking loose - if you could see the future would you try?, he asks her, freaking out. Would you look inside a crystal ball? Would you want to know your fate? How it ends? What would it change? Doesn;t the fact we don;t know the future drive us to do everything we do? Of course, the crystal ball is a metaphor for sex too, but Prince seems to be asking - let’s just stay in this moment. Let’s not worry about how it ends. Horror is all around. We are surrounded by pain and anguish. But you and I are here, so let’s connect through sex and not die alone. Anyway. This take is simply the first three minutes of the original boot, Clare’s there in full, as are Susannah’s harmonies. It’s still as deeply haunting as it ever was, even without the other three acts that make it such an epic on Crystal Ball 1997. This is more intimate, and moving as a result. Never thought it would work as a three minute edit, but Christ, to these ears it could have been a bold single. Doubt WB would have agreed, though.

16. “Big Tall Wall (version 1)”

The mad, whirling, pumping colourful chaos of this first version of Big Tall Wall reminds me of the first version of ‘Guitar’ - in a good way lol. A laid-back vocal, cool mid-60s McCartney bass groove - call completely wiped from the boot version we know. Everything is different, even the verse lyrics. It meanders off on a jazzy, psychedelic groove with a huge drum sound, fucking hell this is alien funk, the shit we all love from the guy and this era. Bizarre instrumentation appears. Lyrics completely different to what we know, except for the chorus. Less obsessive and dark. But still on the theme of complete possession. The keyboard line from Shake! is in there too as a main hook that drives the song along ... or a variation of it. It’s actually a bit like that ‘Hot Summer’ tune, the little motif, not the actual song! Spindling sitars and deep psychedelic groove at end.

Actually it wasn’t the end, and now it’s gone really out there - working up the scales, timbales now added - deep Middle Eastern vibe. ‘True love is what it’s all about’ as a repeated motif at the end works well on top of an Indian vibe. Then we go full Tomorrow Never Knows. Huge instrumental groove with added organ takes us to the end, breaks down to just the drum machine and Prince repeating ‘big tall wall’. Live drums appear then it explodes, again, into a thing of wonder - weird found sounds, a shimmering drone of the sitar takes over, the drums kick in the bass grows fat in the mix … taking us somewhere Prince has never led us before. Astonishing in comparison to the -great- version we’re familiar with. It’s like the boot we know is the negative exposure of this. An evil twin, stripped of everything that makes this version work. Much like the two Forever in My Lifes duality, one warm and playful and the other dark and foreboding. He stripped the joy out of these two songs for the ‘finished’ versions we know. He clearly wanted Susannah to know how she left him feeling. Empty. Devoid of colour. The kitchen sink is thrown at this version, countless colours and shades. It’ll be hard to exhaust this tune, so much going on harmonically, rhythmically and melodically. Lot of fans are going to be very surprised.

17. “Nevaeh Ni Ecalp A”

I haven’t played it backwards yet but I’m assuming it’s Lisa and Wendy re-singing APIH with a mid harmony and a high harmony over backwards organ. Only comparable thing is the alien backwards gospel after Darling Nikki. It’s quite beautiful, W&L’s voices utterly complementing each other as usual, but this is heading to a place beyond the stars, unknown territory. Vocally, it sounds a bit like the Trio Bulkarga on Kate Bushes’s late 80s records, deeply otherworldly, like the plains between life and death, not of this life. Unsettling sound effects, weird drum sounds usher in from the foggy distance - it’s certainly not APIH’s music backwards. Forboding build-up and static similar to Theres Others here With Us. An odd keyboard at the end that sounds like resolution - the word not the song. It’s haunting and utterly unlike anything in P’s catalogue. If it was all W&L, my hat is doffed.

18. “In A Large Room With No Light”

Welcome to the rat race! Well, that’s what I once thought this astonishing work was called. And he definitely doesn’t say ‘holding a dick’ either. Again, like A Place In Heaven and other DF songs, lyrically, it’s Prince telling us there’s hope. In the darkness, there is light. I think Eric Leeds once said this song was peak Revolution, sounding like it was beamed in from the fourth dimension. But I think the underlying rhythm earths it, anchors the madness, that base Latin groove perfectly chiming and accentuating the multilayered oddites of sonic possibility, wildly unexpected vocal layers, that exhilarating golden chorus and, of course, that intimidating outdo coda of ‘Liiiiiiiiiiiight’ ‘Liiiiiiiiiigiiiiiiiiiiiht’ reminds us that this world truly is dark and troubled, but that embarking on any journey with some untangible, unknown ‘liiiiiiiiiight’ as its possible destination is worth all the pain existence and human consciousness brings. Thank you Prince. Thank you Revolution. And thank you for reading and enduring this vomitribe.