About two years ago, the young Las Vegas singer and songwriter Shamir Bailey broke out with Ratchet, a truly great debut album of euphoric disco-house. This morning, Shamir has released its follow-up, and it’s taken a form that nobody could’ve anticipated. Hope, the new album that Shamir has just surprise-released, isn’t dance music, and it also isn’t the tender acoustic music that Shamir has sometimes performed. Instead, it’s jaggedly meditative indie rock; it even features a cover of Juliana Hatfield’s old band the Blake Babies. And because Shamir sings the whole thing in his devastating, virtuosic falsetto, it sounds like absolutely nothing else. And on first listen, it sounds pretty amazing.

On his SoundCloud, Shamir writes that he came very close to quitting music entirely this weekend: “The wear of staying polished with how im presented and how my music was presented took a huge toll on me mentally. I started to hate music, the thing i loved the most!” But rather than quitting, Shamir holed up this weekend and recorded Hope on a four-track at home. He played, wrote, produced, and mixed the whole thing himself, and he’s also shared the whole thing as a free download. Below, you can stream the entire album as one track, and you can also find a tracklist and a download link.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Hope”
02 “What Else”
03 “Ignore Everything”
04 “Tom Kelly”
05 “Easier”
06 “Like A Bird”
07 “One More Time Won’t Kill You”
08 “I Fucking Hate You”
09 “Rain” (Blake Babies cover)
10 “Bleed It Out”

Download Hope for free at Mediafire.