Paul Cafcae strides through fearless grace with “Purple Rain,” a track on his genre-jumping new album “Scarlet and Sparks.” This is an earnest reimagining, seen through Cafcae’s brand, a mix of folk, blues, and Americana grit.
Cafcae eases up on the pace, embraces the gloom, and lets every note breathe with purpose. His weathered and warm voice feels as much reflective as it does performative. There’s no attempt to keep up with Prince’s vocal histrionics. Instead, Cafcae discovers a quieter tempest within the song, stripping it down to its emotional marrow and handing us a rendition that sounds lived in, perhaps even lived through.
This song is more than a nod to one of pop’s greatest anthems. It’s a glance through a window into Cafcae’s more general artistic progress. “Scarlet and Sparks” is an album of contrasts, social commentary pitched against love songs, and gritty rebellion next to tender introspection, just like the influences Cafcae like John Lennon and Johnny Cash. It’s amid this lush tapestry that “Purple Rain” finds its home, not an outlier but an anchor of tone and truth.
Even more impressive is Cafcae’s skill at being very much himself, even as he borrows from icons. For the USSR-born, accordion-trained musician who once studied music theory and vocals at a specialist school, it’s clearly an artist unafraid to roam above musical genres, and yet, regardless of where he roams, his sound remains grounded, authentic, and human. In “Purple Rain,” the result is one version that not only echoes the past but also exists in elements in the now, ghostly, truthful, and all his own.
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