At the bridge of "Calabama," Prince calls out for horns twice, and on the multitrack he left at Paisley Park in January 2003, a synthesizer answers him. The four-track Calabama EP, released digitally through NPG Records on Friday (Oct 9), puts that synthesizer back in front of listeners on an official release. Six weeks earlier, a horn section recorded this year had been laid over it on the estate's Timeless album.

The EP pairs "Calabama (Vault Raw)," the 2003 recording as Prince left it, with the Timeless version that carries the added horns. It also adds two previously unreleased takes of a song called "Prince And The Band," one of them cut with Maceo Parker on saxophone. Prince produced, arranged, wrote and played the original "Calabama" himself, with John Blackwell on drums and Joe Lipinski recording the session at Paisley Park on Jan. 21, 2003.

When Timeless arrived on Aug. 28, we listed "Calabama" among ten unreleased vault recordings spanning 1977 to 2016, the 2003 entry in a sequence built to walk through his career in order. Fans reading the album credits found Greg Boyer, Adrian Crutchfield and Lynn Grissett listed on horns. According to reports, Crutchfield and Grissett are not believed to have played with Prince until around 2012. Boyer then wrote on Facebook that he had recorded his part this year, which cut against the way the album had been presented.

The estate answered on Sept. 4 with a statement posted to Prince's Instagram on behalf of NPG Records and the Prince management team. It said the archived multitrack held a synthesizer in the space where his vocal asks for horns, and that players from his circle were brought in to record the line he had intended. It also said the song stood alone on the album: "Except for 'Calabama,' no overdubs were used on any other recording for Timeless, posthumously." The same statement said no AI had been used on any Prince music.

A second statement would not have settled the argument, and the estate did not issue one. It released the evidence instead, both recordings on one EP, and the announcement framed the pairing as a look at the responsibilities that come with presenting music from the Vault. The estate also said selected untouched Vault recordings are expected to be available for listening at Paisley Park in 2027 as archival artifacts, the same principle applied to far more than one song.

Boyer's name runs through both halves of the EP. He played trombone on "Prince And The Band (Vault Raw 2)," which Ian Boxill recorded and mixed at Paisley Park on Aug. 22, 2006. Prince handled vocals, guitar and keyboards on that take, with Cora Coleman-Dunham on drums, Josh Dunham on bass, Parker on saxophone and Ray Monteiro on trumpet. Twenty years later the same trombonist was in a studio finishing "Calabama," the strongest case the estate has that the posthumous overdubs came from inside Prince's world rather than a hired roster.

The other take, "Prince And The Band (Vault Raw 1)," runs in the opposite direction, with Prince performing every vocal and instrumental part and Boxill again capturing and mixing it at Paisley Park. Neither take appeared on Timeless. Heard back to back, they show the two ways he built records in that decade, alone with every instrument in reach or with a full band and horns answering his cues.

Prince met Parker in Minneapolis in July 1999, after an Ani DiFranco concert, and invited the band back to Paisley Park. Parker added saxophone to "Prettyman" that night and later joined Prince's band, according to the Prince Vault archive. The 2006 take adds another studio performance by the former James Brown saxophonist to the official Prince catalog.

Timeless debuted at No. 59 on the Billboard 200 and reached No. 5 on Top R&B Albums, according to the estate. The album drew more attention for its credits than for that chart run. Living artists running their own archives face a different set of questions. When Beyoncé reopened B'Day for its 20th anniversary, the 27-track configuration reflected how she wants that era remembered, a point we made when we mapped the reissue. Prince cannot make that call about a bridge he left unfinished in 2003.

Start at the bridge of "Calabama (Vault Raw)," where his voice asks for horns and the synthesizer carries the line. Then play the same passage on the Timeless version, which the four-track EP places right beside it, and hear what three horn players recorded in that space this year.