Piano & A Microphone 1983 is the first posthumous stand-alone album of previously unreleased material by Prince. The album is a recording of a solo piano rehearsal by Prince, assumed to be from spring 1983 at his Kiowa Trail Home Studio, Chanhassen, MN, USA.
As the first major release from Prince's vault (the 2017 expanded edition of Purple Rain was announced prior to his 2016 death), Piano & a Microphone 1983 is disarmingly casual. Its prosaic title is a precise description of the album's content -- it is nothing more than Prince sitting at a piano, playing whatever comes to his mind for just over half an hour -- yet even if the record delivers upon that promise, it's not quite as simple as it seems. For one, there's a level of intimacy on Piano & a Microphone unlike anything else in Prince's catalog. While there may have been some editing sleight of hand to make these 35 minutes appear to be a continuous performance, there's no production to speak of, yet it still bears the hallmarks of a studio recording; the music is too clear to be anything but. Despite early appearances of '17 Days,' 'Purple Rain,' and 'Strange Relationship,' this can't be called a demo session: Prince plays his recent 'International Lover,' hauls out the spiritual standard 'Mary Don't You Weep' -- a song he could in no way have been considering for inclusion on an album -- and plays a bit of Joni Mitchell's 'A Case of You.' The brevity of 'A Case of You' and 'Purple Rain' -- both hover around 90 seconds -- highlights this session's informality, but that point is hammered home at the end of the record when Prince goofs through 'Cold Coffee and Cocaine' in a voice he'd later perfect on 'Bob George' and tries to find a concrete song within 'Why the Butterflies.' Far from detracting from Piano & a Microphone, these loose ends are the reason to listen to the album. The whole affair plays like the listener is eavesdropping on Prince creating, and there simply can't be a reissue more valuable than that.
Title/Composer | Performer | Time |
---|---|---|
1 | Lisa Coleman / Matthew Fink / Wendy Melvoin / Prince | 06:22 |
2 | 01:26 | |
3 | 01:40 | |
4 | 04:42 | |
5 | 02:38 | |
6 | 03:48 | |
7 | 01:59 | |
8 | 05:13 | |
9 | 06:26 |
blue highlight denotes track pick