Mac Miller

Mac Miller
Quad Recording Studios
Wednesday, October 27

Better than: Waiting until 11/8/2011

"Turn it up loud because I like to listen to it loud," Mac Miller gleefully prefaced as his debut album blared over the speakers. Joint in hand--sometimes alternated with a bottle of champagne--and cloaked in a hooded sweatshirt with a pair of slide sandals with socks, the wunderkind known for goofy lyrics about mogul Donald Trump and turkey sandwiches previewed Blue Slide Park (slated for 11/8/2011 release) to a small group of hip-hop journalists and influencers last night at Quad Recording Studios.

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Over the weekend Björk released "Crystalline," the first peek at her forthcoming iPad-app-slash-album Biophilia, which is slated to land on tablets and in stores and in various other places around the world in September. It opens with delicate chimes and the Icelandic singer's unmistakeable voice before spiraling out into something harder—yet the glimmer of the music-box-light opening remains apparent throughout. Listen below.

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This morning Radiohead premiered "Staircase," a moody, somewhat noodly track with a bouncing bassline and drones buzzing past each other. The performance of "Staircase" was recorded during the filming of Radiohead's forthcoming From The Basement episode, which premieres July 1 on the BBC; Radiohead will reportedly play The King of Limbs in full on the broadcast as well. Clip below.

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Above, the reggae singer Little Roy takes on the A and B sides of Nirvana's "Sliver"/"Dive" single, which is almost 21 years old as of this writing. Both covers are surprisingly enjoyable to listen to—raise your hand if your first reaction when hearing the phrase "reggae Nirvana cover" is the mental image of being trapped in a lousy college-town bar on open-mic night—but "Dive" is particularly revelatory, with Roy's wail matching Kurt Cobain's strangled wail quite effectively. The songs are available digitally now, and Ark Recordings is putting them out on a 7-inch later this month. [Hat tip to Jimmy A and Line Out.]

The first taste of the Rapture's forthcoming album The Grace Of Your Love (DFA), the lengthy dance jam "How Deep Is Your Love?," is not only pretty good—if you turn the lights in whatever room you're in low enough and up the brightness on your monitor all the way, the video that doubles as the track's official premiere vehicle can sorta make you feel like you're in a club, and not sitting in front of a computer. Well-timed for a glacially moving summer Friday afternoon, no?

Shawn Brackbill

​The Brooklyn quintet Twin Sister will release their first full-length In Heaven on September 27, but the first taste, the burbling, sugary "Bad Street," is tailor-made for a steamy day like today. Lead singer Andrea Estella sweetly asks for her paramour to feed her stories and promises over a synth line that's part Human League, part pitter-patter—when she says "I want it bad" over and over while the music simmers underneath, her infatuation is so audible it's almost dizziness-inducing. (Also, maybe it's just me, but I hear a bit of a callback to the intro for Neneh Cherry's "Kisses On The Wind" in the vocal looped underneath said declaration?) Clip after the jump.

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​Jamie Smith—a.k.a. Jamie xx, of The xx and of collaborations with the late Gil Scott-Heron—has released his first single, "Far Nearer," in both limited-edition vinyl and download form. The B-side, "Beat For," is a chilly, downtempo track that could very easily soundtrack a spell of the spins, while the sun-dappled A-side sounds a bit like a scattered-on-the-ground remake of "My Girls" (some readers will probably nominate the song for Summer Jam status immediately after reading the description; I'm a bit more on the fence but will try to give the song a few more spins). Both tracks are streaming after the jump.

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via paramore.net

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"Monster" is the first fully fleshed track from the outfit Paramore to come out since two of its members left in a huff of authenticity late last year, although the band's most defining aspect—the wail of flame-haired frontwoman Hayley Williams—is still intact. The song, which will appear on the soundtrack to the next Transformers monstrosity, sounds a little bit more introverted than the band's earlier material, with delicate filigrees of guitar and floating-in-space Williams clones providing breathy "oh-oh-oh"s here and there; call it the rainy-day-journal-scribbling flipside to the chunkier, and also movie-tied, "Decode." Listen below.

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​Late last night the surprisingly effective sapmeisters who make up Coldplay released their new single "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall," and it's a pillowy dance anthem that's either about a breakup or about rising up against oppressive forces (lyrics like "don't want to see another generation drop/ I'd rather be a comma than a full stop" make it seem like the latter, but then there's a bit about "you" emerging from some sort of light and telling Chris Martin's narrator that everything's going to be all right, so who knows). The last minute or so is given over to a guitar rave-up that sounds absolutely glorious, with dueling riffs occasionally being given over to pealing guitars in such a way that makes me think it's going to be as big of a hit as a rock song can be this summer. Listen below.

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​OK, technically it's Slow Jam Wednesday-Night-To-Thursday, what with Beyoncé debuting her brassy ballad "1+1" on last night's Idol, the Weeknd dropping "Rolling Stone" later in the evening, and this Pusha T remix of Miguel's sinuous, everything-ruling "Sure Thing" dropping this AM. But Lil Wayne's "How To Love," which is being pulled down from YouTube left and right but which is for now intact at Rap Radar, will probably be floating out of the most cars this summer. This is because the Detail-produced track kind of sounds like... a slightly tougher "I'm Yours"? With a lightly Autotuned Wayne singing over it and the occasional splotch of burned-out synth? This description makes it sound awful, I know, but it's actually quite sweet and catchy.