Lauriann...a simple song...upon first listen. Since Num23's review, I have been paying closer attention and just loving it. It proves again, anything that's worth it takes time. You have to give these more listens to gain everything within it. You have to trust he was a genius too. There is someting in there that's special...almost all the time.

gandorb said:

I really appreciate your descriptions of these songs, number23. The only possible issue is that your descriptions are more delicious than the songs themselves.

i need AI generated prince songs that match the write ups in this thread

DARKSIDE

HARKENING back to the Counter-Revolution's run-through of Power Fantastic in the SOTT deluxe edition box set, this track opens with P in conversational tone, guard down, casually giving instructions to the band - or in this instance, drummer Michael Bland.

Here we go. Me and Levi will start and then you come in with a big…

P then, like a child imitating the drum kit they want for Christmas to their parents, dramatically and comically vocalises a thunderous drum intro he wants Bland to mirror - there’s no laughs but someone in the room must have smiled at the boss’s brief moment of communicative emotional nakedness, of just being ... normal. 

It’s a welcome moment on this box set, P at ease and in good humour, testing the limits and creativity of his private joy, the NPG.

Or at least a skeletal version of it - and not the New Power Trio we’re familiar with, as it sounds like Levi is playing bass here (with a heavily distorted fuzz tone pedal or similar) which serves as this blusey/Zeppy/Hawkwindy/Deep Purpley-mid-70s-heavy-rock-before-it-morphed-into-metal instrumental jam’s foundation - it’s ominous, foreboding hook/lead line specially designed to do the do, to get the head nodding, jaw jutting and funk face forming.

It also sounds like it’s been overdubbed with a spooky synthline echoing the notes - although that might simply be the particular effect Levi is using on the bass.

Ok are you ready? 2. 3. Mm. (It’s clear P has his mouth full, eating something while leading the players in)

Levi begins his distorted bass hook - it’s sinister in a near-cartoony way, playful but definitely leaning towards a tone of darkness and foreboding. It’s not improvised - clearly the song has been worked on before, perhaps without Bland’s presence.

The bass hook is repeated four times, then Bland enters with casual magnificance: perfectly reproducing the stuttering roll P has asked of him, contributing a rapid punch combo of such raw, controlled power that we can detect the instrumental synergy in the room soar.

P feeds on it - immediately letting rip without any foreplay: unleashing a glorious blaze of blinding white light from the bottom end of the fretboard, then attempting to tame this wild flaming dervish by slooooowly bending the strings ... a loooong, aching screaming note incinerates all hesitency and doubt as Bland boldly finds the pocket with Levi.

P’s guitar dissipates into white noise and riffing as he vocalises wordlessly in falsetto over the baseline, just mouthing single notes in rhythm - perhaps an indicator of where the lyrics will go if the groove comes to full fruition when he is, finally, alone in the studio with the backing track. Away from these cumbersome humans with just his muse for company.

We get a few more bars of the main groove and P's vocalisations continue over wailing, fraught guitar … before it falls silent and he orders the band:

Change!

The foundation of the groove then dissipates to dust, as a sledgehammer turnaround led by Bland’s thunderous, stuttering drums startles, thrills, elevates and, well, fucking wrecks the room.

The main groove returns and P (while still continually vocalising the bassline's ascending three notes with a nonchalant, casual ’uh-uh-uh’) takes the opportunity to solo, once again abusing the fretboard with an almost Tom Verlaine/Televisiony spindly, chiming, controlled, mathematical solo. 



Then, signalled by a few ‘Change!’ turnarounds, Michael aggressively pounds out a stuttering backtrack of groove, somehow pulling back and pushing forward simulteniously. In response, P's main guitar line then morphs into an astralrawk frenzied delirium as the bassline remains steady, cool, unaffected by the solo's myriad emotions being splattered on top as it takes us to Heaven and Hades over its 45 second duration.

P is clearly taking great delight in stripping the paint off the walls and paying homage to all the gods of the last rock age, continually ordering Bland to ‘Change!’ as he responds to his young, hungry, ridiculously skilled drummer’s tribal, primal fire by riffing, squealing, feasting on ferocious fornicating feedback with the flanger effects pedal … soaring beyond and above, searching and yearning for something more, something other, demanding entry to the timeless everything/everywhere between dimensional folds. Then, suddenly:

Cymbal!

Bland stops drumming as P continues soloing, Levi finds the groove again and then P orders his drummer:

Come in real strong and play on the cymbals, as hard as you can, big time, loud!

And as he does, P aggressively apes the big, deliberately-dumb, tribally Sabbath-style bass riff at the heart of the song with his raspiest voice.

‘DA-DA-DA-DA-DAHH-DAHHH’

Bland replies in kind with a huge, crashing cymbal accompaniment to his brutally heavy bass drum, as P indulges in a series of quite extraordinary shredder runs though transcendent pentatonic and orgasmatronic scales. ‘The guitar is soloing’ he deadpans, casually, hilariously, as if we don’t fucking know. There has never been a more obvious statement uttered by an upright homosapien.

P is now, quite clearly, in the zone. In his mind, he has transcended the rotting flesh and metal machines filling the room. He has temporarily become something other, a shimmering, vibrating shamanistic ground zero of sound, breaking on through to the other side and stealing forbidden, taboo emotions from a higher plane like a musical Promethius, plundering some wider spectrum of understanding and then gifting it to the primitive blood-fuelled vehicles back here on this earthly plane.

Give them a couple of licks if you feel like it

Whether he’s talking to Bland or Levi doesn’t matter: neither take him up on his offer, giving P the green light to burst into flame like that Fantastic Four motherfucker, burning the skin off his bandmates' faces, becoming the superhero he dreamed of being as a bullied boy, the Princess in the playground no more.

Do the change - twice!

Bland accepts the offer.

Again - now.

Bland replies in kind. Thunder rumbles.

Again - now!

Bland once again accepts the challenge. Then, a pregnant pause, and we are returned, landed gently, back onto the runway of the song’s primal groove as P one again casually vocalises ‘uh-uh-uh’ to the bass notes. And it still sounds like he’s fucking eating something.

End!

P now takes us home with a discordant, white-noisy soundscape which ebbs away as the room falls silent. Bland has clearly passed the test, not only reaching the bar but inspiring his bandleader to join him and explore whatever plane of conciousness they were both just starsailing upon.


P pimp voices: ‘Crazy, crazy’

‘What are you going to call that one?’ Levi asks.

P sounds like he is still eating something. He mumbles a ‘I don’t know’ sound.

‘What other titles you got on there?’

‘Something funky this house comes’

‘What?!’ Levi enquires.

‘Something funky this house comes’ P repeats, casually, mellow - like he didn’t just fly through hell on a black unicorn that breathed supernovas, ate galaxies and chewed on the old gods to sharpen its teeth for future battles.

[Edited 9/27/23 1:18am]

I quit more than 10 years ago but after reading this Darkside piece, I think I need a cigarette

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Apparently there was a third one left off the Set called Fruits of Labour

oh I do hope someone has these and we will get to hear them one day.

or perhaps the estate will have some plans for Vault Series 1 etc, and it
could constitute tracks like these.

LILpoundCAKE said:

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Apparently there was a third one left off the Set called Fruits of Labour

oh I do hope someone has these and we will get to hear them one day.

or perhaps the estate will have some plans for Vault Series 1 etc, and it
could constitute tracks like these.

Looking forward to The Vault Series Vol.1

PS : Don't tell me it's already been released. The 2 tracks released in july are only PART of this set not the whole set.

fredmagnus said:

LILpoundCAKE said:

oh I do hope someone has these and we will get to hear them one day.

or perhaps the estate will have some plans for Vault Series 1 etc, and it
could constitute tracks like these.

Looking forward to The Vault Series Vol.1

PS : Don't tell me it's already been released. The 2 tracks released in july are only PART of this set not the whole set.

.

Have you a source for this information?

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Apparently there was a third one left off the Set called Fruits of Labour

And Lactation it seems.

fredmagnus said:

LILpoundCAKE said:

oh I do hope someone has these and we will get to hear them one day.

or perhaps the estate will have some plans for Vault Series 1 etc, and it
could constitute tracks like these.

Looking forward to The Vault Series Vol.1

PS : Don't tell me it's already been released. The 2 tracks released in july are only PART of this set not the whole set.

.
It should've been labelled as "From the Vault Series, Vol. 1" then. It wasn't.

Kares said:

fredmagnus said:

Looking forward to The Vault Series Vol.1

PS : Don't tell me it's already been released. The 2 tracks released in july are only PART of this set not the whole set.

.
It should've been labelled as "From the Vault Series, Vol. 1" then. It wasn't.

this will probably will become a yearly celebration gift where they release these Cassete/USB things to the people attending.
So they will probably have The Vault Series Vol.2 next year with 2 more intentionaly watered down unrelated tracks.

D&P Dolby Atmos mix is ... quite something.

TheNumber23 said:

D&P Dolby Atmos mix is ... quite something.

can I buy this somewhere?

oh wait, the atmos mix, that's no good to me on my headphones, without a bluray/speakers setup?

[Edited 9/28/23 10:41am]

LILpoundCAKE said:

TheNumber23 said:

D&P Dolby Atmos mix is ... quite something.

can I buy this somewhere?

oh wait, the atmos mix, that's no good to me on my headphones, without a bluray/speakers setup?

[Edited 9/28/23 10:41am]

Yeah you need compatible headphones/speakers. Purists will be pissed. 😂

TheNumber23 said:

LILpoundCAKE said:

can I buy this somewhere?

oh wait, the atmos mix, that's no good to me on my headphones, without a bluray/speakers setup?

[Edited 9/28/23 10:41am]

Yeah you need compatible headphones/speakers. Purists will be pissed. 😂

I see, in that case I'll just have to wait on the regular remaster.

Why will the purists be pissed? The atmos mix is wild?

LILpoundCAKE said:

TheNumber23 said:

Yeah you need compatible headphones/speakers. Purists will be pissed. 😂

I see, in that case I'll just have to wait on the regular remaster.

Why will the purists be pissed? The atmos mix is wild?

Oh yeah. Thunder, Daddy Pop, Walk Don't Walk, Jughead, Push and Live 4 Love sound reinvented to these ears ... bold remixing but, for me (and some will vehemently disagree) still respectful to the original masters. That 90s 'sheen' is pretty much gone. It's D&P reimagined. Don't underestimate how much work has gone into this. The rhythm guitar in Push could take someone's head off now... Live For Love never really hit for me, was too over-produced, campy ... this is quite an extraordinary interpretation of how it should have perhaps originally sounded if the technology had been available.

dang, that sounds very interesting!

TheNumber23 said:

LILpoundCAKE said:

I see, in that case I'll just have to wait on the regular remaster.

Why will the purists be pissed? The atmos mix is wild?

Oh yeah. Thunder, Daddy Pop, Walk Don't Walk, Jughead, Push and Live 4 Love sound reinvented to these ears ... bold remixing but, for me (and some will vehemently disagree) still respectful to the original masters. That 90s 'sheen' is pretty much gone. It's D&P reimagined. Don't underestimate how much work has gone into this. The rhythm guitar in Push could take someone's head off now... Live For Love never really hit for me, was too over-produced, campy ... this is quite an extraordinary interpretation of how it should have perhaps originally sounded if the technology had been available.

.

Listening to the front center channel only reveals a lot of elements that I had never heard. I don't know if I will listen to this a lot but this is fun.

(Moved to Atmos thread.)

[Edited 9/29/23 0:57am]

JoeyCococo said:

Number23..where are you my man/woman. It's been 5 days since Streetwalker....

My Tender Heart came out 4 days after Schoolyard.

Pain came out 2 days after My Tender Heart.

Streetwalker came out 2 days after Pain.

Now, 4 days and counting!!

7 days.......