The Weeknd: Echoes of Silence (2LP) [REPUBLIC]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set in a gatefold jacket gives the trilogy's closing chapter a proper vinyl home, with the bonus "Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)" on board. It made the 2012 Polaris Music Prize long list and drew a Metacritic score of 82.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Back in 2011 Abel Tesfaye was still a mystery, a Toronto voice with no face, giving his music away online. Echoes of Silence arrived on December 21 that year, the third free mixtape in nine months after House of Balloons and Thursday, and it closed the run of records that changed what R&B could sound like.

Longtime collaborator Illangelo produced most of it, with Clams Casino and DropXLife coming aboard for the first time and Juicy J dropping in for a spoken interlude. "D.D." opens the record by reworking a Michael Jackson hit in his own shadowy image, "Montreal" and "Outside" glide over slow, cavernous beats, "Initiation" was the advance single, and the title track floats off in a haze of synths. Critics heard darkwave, ambient, post-punk and trip hop in the mix, and The Guardian found it eerie and desolate yet strangely cosseting.

A year later the three mixtapes were gathered up as Trilogy, and the rest is stadium history. Not bad going for something he first handed out for free. We'd try the same business model, but the landlord has views.

Also at Kops: more The Weeknd on vinyl · browse CDN Hip Hop

Tracklist

Listen

On XO / Republic, a reissue of the 2011 album.