Prince - Timeless

Ten previously unreleased recordings from the Prince vault make up Timeless, a collection that stretches from 1977 all the way to 2016.

It is the first Prince Estate release built to span every major era of his career, with former Prince engineer Chris James on mixing and mastering duties. The songs run in chronological order, so the album plays like a time-lapse of one of pop's most restless minds, moving from teenage ambition to late-career confidence in ten steps.

I Am You, recorded at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, catches him at the very start and already in command. With This Tear is an intimate recording from the early 90s that he wrote, produced and arranged himself, while Stone is a funk-driven workout from 1995 that shows the groove never left him.

The Guilty Ones, from 2007, features Marva King and Shelby J. on backing vocals, and the album closes with a live performance from 2016, one of his final tour dates, complete with an audience singalong that makes a fitting farewell.

For collectors, it's a fresh chapter in a catalogue that keeps on revealing more, and a reminder of how much music Prince was making at every stage, much of it for no one but himself.