Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Prince’s untimely death and to mark the occasion, Deliverance, a six track EP, will be available for purchase.
The songs were recorded between 2006 and 2008, and include a four-movement medley named ‘Man Opera’, which is a fairly Prince thing to do.
“The songs were written and recorded when Prince was an independent artist, protesting what he saw as an unjust music industry”, a press release explains. “In the spirit of that independence, and in supporting Prince’s opinion of major label contracts, DELIVERANCE is being released independently via RMA, a Vancouver, WA based record company. The majority of all sales of DELIVERANCE will benefit Prince’s estate.”
Prince worked with writer and producer Ian Boxill on the recordings, with Boxill completing the project over the past year. Boxill has worked with Gladys Knight, Janet Jackson, 2Pac and more, so this promises to be a rather respectful bit of posthumous intrusion, unlike a lot of the dross pushed out under Michael Jackson’s name.
“I believe Deliverance is a timely release with everything going on in the world today, and in light of the one-year anniversary of his passing”, says Boxill of the release. “I hope when people hear Prince singing these songs it will bring comfort to many.
Prince once told me that he would go to bed every night thinking of ways to bypass major labels and get his music directly to the public. When considering how to release this important work, we decided to go independent because that’s what Prince would have wanted.”
Listen to the title track to Deliverance, below, and check out the EP artwork, too.
