Nevermind, You Can’t Download Jai Paul’s Debut LP
Over the weekend, Jai Paul, the mysterious and notably unprolific space-R&B artist Jai Paul suddenly and without warning posted his debut album on Bandcamp. Or that’s how it looked, anyway. But there were strange things happening with that sudden release: The missing track titles, the oddly wispy sound quality, the fact that Paul still appears to be signed to XL Recordings. And now, as Pitchfork reports, Bandcamp has taken the album down. Jai Paul Tweeted, “To confirm: demos on bandcamp were not uploaded by me, this is not my debut album. Please don’t buy. Statement to follow later. Thanks, Jai.” So nobody’s exactly sure what happened with the album’s release, though there are rumors that Paul’s laptop was stolen and that some profiteering pirate started selling the album. Hopefully, though, you did manage to download the thing, because it’s pretty great. We’ll have more details on this story as they emerge.