PLECTRUMELECTRUM – Prince • 3RDEYEGIRL - Paisley Park Studios

PLECTRUMELECTRUM – Paisley Park Studios

The Plectrumelectrum session at Paisley Park captured Prince at his most raw and fearless. Working with 3RDEYEGIRL — Donna Grantis on guitar, Hannah Ford on drums, and Ida Nielsen on bass — he transformed Studio A into a live rock venue rather than a typical recording space. Prince pushed for immediacy: the amps cranked, drums pounding, bass snarling, everything recorded in live takes to bottle the band’s chemistry.

Prince stalked between the console and the floor, guitar slung low, giving sharp cues with a glance or a flick of the wrist. He demanded tightness but thrived on spontaneity — a balance that made the room feel more like an unannounced Paisley Park jam than a studio session. The song grew from that energy: heavy grooves, fuzzed-out guitar duels between Prince and Donna, and a rhythm section that hit with both funk precision and rock aggression.

To match the intensity of the music, Prince invited filmmaker Madison Dubé into the studio to capture the moment on camera. Her visuals documented the raw fire of the session — the sweat, the focus, the electricity in the room — and preserved it as more than just an audio recording. Her footage gave fans a rare, intimate glimpse into the process: not a polished, choreographed performance, but a band exploding in real time under Prince’s direction.

The result was Plectrumelectrum: not just a track, but a snapshot of Paisley Park’s walls shaking with sound, vision, and Prince’s relentless drive to merge performance and recording into one