James Blake - “The Sound Of Silence” (Simon & Garfunkel Cover)

James Blake returned to BBC Radio 1’s Residency tonight, and he was joined on air by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, as Pitchfork points out. The two chatted about a number of topics, and Blake closed out the show by playing a new cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound Of Silence,” which he dedicated to a friend who passed away on New Year’s Eve. Although he swaps out the original’s rippling guitar for his usual mournful synths, it’s a pretty minimal, faithful cover — which is good, because the original is gorgeous, and so is this. Listen below, and hear the entire mix here via the BBC.

Simon And Garfunkel - The Sound Of Silence (with lyrics)

James Blake – “Modern Soul”

While the rest of humanity was busy digesting The Life Of Pablo, James Blake was DJing on BBC Radio 1’s Residency, and he took the opportunity to slip an absolutely gorgeous new track of his own into the world. Like the “Sound Of Silence” cover that he shared a few months ago, “Modern Soul” is a minimalist slow-burn, starting with some faded piano chords and that ethereal croon and gradually expanding out into a crystalline cavern of sound.

John Malkovich – “Cryolife 7:14 A.M.” (Feat. Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon)

Sometimes, it seems like everything John Malkovitch has done in the decade and a half since Being John Malkovitch is one long extended wheel-spin, because what the fuck can you possibly do after that? Case in point: Malkovitch’s new project Like A Puppet Show, on which Malkovitch reads Plato over music from his collaborator Eric Alexandrakis, and then various all-star musicians remix it. We’ve already heard Rik Ocasek’s random-ass contribution, and now, thanks to Rolling Stone, we get to hear what happens when Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon get ahold of one of those tracks. The end result is called “Cryolife 7:14 A.M.,” and it really does sound like Malkovitch reading Plato while Ono and Lennon do unrelated things. It sounds like trash! Check it out below!

Coldplay - “Adventure Of A Lifetime”

London’s investigative-journalist Coldplay heads were right: Coldplay’s new album A Head Full Of Dreams is coming out at the top of next month. This time around, the album comes absolutely stuffed with guests: Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher, Swedish rising pop star Tove Lo, gospel howler/”Gimme Shelter” backup singer Merry Clayton. It looks like Brian Eno had no hand in the proceedings; instead, Coldplay worked with the glossy Norwegian pop-production team Stargate, as well as longtime collaborator Rik Simpson. They recorded the album in Malibu, L.A., and London.

Frontman Chris Martin has been talking about this album as maybe their last one. In an interview with Zane Lowe last year, he said that the new LP would be “the completion of something” and elaborated: “I have to think of it as the final thing we’re doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t put everything into it.” So we might not have Coldplay to kick around too much longer anymore.

The album’s first single is certainly a bright, sparkly pop tune, even by this band’s standards. We’ve already heard a bit of “Adventure Of A Lifetime,” but the whole thing is online now. And it’s a Coldplay take on disco-funk, with an Afro-pop guitar figure and some strutting rhythm-section work along with all the usual vague uplift. Below, check out the new song, the album’s tracklist, and watch the band doing a comedy bit for BBC Radio 1 in which they try to make hits out of the most boring lyrics possible.

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - “I Can Be Afraid Of Anything” (Official Audio)

Depression is a hole. That’s the metaphor that threads through “I Can Be Afraid Of Anything,” the second single from The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die’s upcoming sophomore album, Harmlessness. But instead of wallowing in that depression, it offers a way out. It starts at the lowest point, when all feels pointless, and lifts itself up by the song’s end. It’s a spiritual cleansing: “I wanna empty myself,” Tyler Bussey sings. “Because everything is getting rid of everything else… We are the same, but opposed.” There’s two sides fighting each other: the side that wants to get better, and the one that feels as though things never will. But there’s a revelation about halfway through the song, when you realize that the prison you’ve kept yourself in can be broken out of if you ask for help. The song even shifts gears to reflect that change, when it goes from an aggressive, pounding nod to a jubilant, bouncy sway. “I’m climbing out,” the band repeats, and then: “You can smell life here, what we call life above the ground.”

Like all of the collective’s best songs, it fills you with a sense of hope and makes you feel like anything is possible, all without diminishing or invalidating the legitimacy of the feelings that started everything off in the first place. It’s a stark but ultimately uplifting depiction of depression. It’s a sprawling, masterfully constructed epic that takes seven minutes to unfold and still makes it feel like there’s things left unsaid. Like “January 10th, 2014” before it, “I Can Be Afraid Of Anything” plays out issues on a grand scale, but in a way that’s intimate and personal. It’s one of the best songs the band has ever done, and one of the best songs of the year. Listen and read some words from co-vocalist/co-songwriter David Bello about the track below.

The Weeknd – “Prisoner” (Feat. Lana Del Rey)

The most intriguing part of the Weeknd’s Beauty Behind The Madness tracklist is “Prisoner,” the duet with Lana Del Rey. They make a head-slappingly obvious pairing for reasons already expressed by Tom: “The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey both sing slow, sad, narcotically tinged songs about the toll of the party lifestyle, and both of them somehow make that work in a pop context.” That duet has made its way online, and yeah, these two are a perfect fit. “Prisoner” feels like an old Weeknd mixtape track, but with touches of Del Rey’s doomed noir glamor. You can listen to the track over on Tumblr.

Grimes, Bleachers - Entropy (Audio)

Grimes first linked up with Fun. co-leader Jack Antonoff on “Take It Away,” a 2014 song from Antonoff’s solo side project Bleachers. And now they’ve teamed up once again, this time for an absolutely dazzling pop song called “Entropy.” It’s a power-pop tune, more or less, with the same sort of sparkling production that Antonoff brought to Taylor Swift’s “Out Of The Woods.” But it’s very much a Grimes song, too, with that otherworldly echoing reverb all over Claire Boucher’s voice. The song will appear on tonight’s episode of HBO’s Girls. They’ve shared it a bit early, which is nice, since it’s also a pretty perfect Sunday-morning soundtrack.

My Brightest Diamond - “Lover/Killer” (Official Video)

Shara Worden’s art pop project released the album This Is My Hand a couple of months ago, and the LP has already yielded a video for Pressure.” Today we get a video for “Lover/Killer,” and it is different. Director Jean-Paul Frenay’s hallucinatory clip tells a dark, intense crime story that involves bitterly estranged friends and guns raised in anger and an evil-looking crow man. Watch it below, and see if you can figure out what the fuck is going on.

Rancid - “Already Dead” (Official Audio)

Berkeley punk greats Rancid announced their new album Honor Is All We Know a few weeks ago, and they’ve already posted video of themselves playing three new songs and shared the first single “Face Up.” “Already Dead,” the latest song that they’ve shared, is the best one we’ve heard yet. The song does that great old street-punk thing of sounding like an old folk song while still being ridiculously fast and loud. And while Matt Freeman’s bass playing is always nimble and dizzying, it’s especially nimble and dizzying on this one. It’s a great song, and you can listen.

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - “In The Heat Of The Moment” (Official Audio)

It’s been almost three years to the day since Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds released their self-titled debut album, and today, they return with a new single and the announcement of a sophomore LP, Chasing Yesterday. That album title seems so ripe for mockery that I almost wonder if it’s a pre-emptive strike: There’s nothing you can say about Noel Gallagher that he hasn’t said about himself. The single, “In The Heat Of The Moment,” has no relation to the similarly titled Asia song. Instead, it sounds a lot like post-Be Here Now Oasis and/or the last High Flying Birds album. Which is to say, it’s good! Say what you will, but Noel delivers the hooks, and his voice has aged a whole lot better than Liam’s. (Also worth noting: The album opens with a song called “Riverman,” which has no relation to the Nick Drake song “River Man.” And the track “While The Song Remains The Same” has no relation to the Zeppelin album, etc.) According to the press materials, Johnny Marr guests on the album’s closing track, “Ballad Of The Mighty I.” Also according to those materials, “In The Heat Of The Moment” was “inspired by a documentary in which an astronaut said that going into space for the first time feels like touching the face of God. ’If that’s not an opening line for a song I don’t know what is,’ said Mr. Gallagher.” Of course he knows: “Today is gonna be the day…”; “Maybe I don’t really wannna know how your garden grows…” Yes, Noel Gallagher knows from opening lines. Listen.