THE WEEKEND PRODUCED BY CHIDULY

Dropped today is the remix set of The Weekend by ChiDuly. Featuring remixed tracks from all three of the Canadian's 2011 mixtapes, "Haus Of Balloons" brings a new feeling to the often solemn sound of The Weeknd with strong beats and tempo, literally making them come alive. I still prefer the original music, of course, but the remixes serve as a refreshing twist to transform the dark vibe they held to something more alive. It also fills the gap nicely until The Weeknd releases his promised 'remastered' trilogy later this year.

THE WEEKND ECHOES OF SILENCE

It's the second to last Thursday of the calendar year, and Canadian mystery-man The Weeknd has dropped his highly anticipated mixtape "Echoes Of Silence". This is the third set of the 2011 trilogy and as expected, it is huge.

Opening with a surprise cover of one of my personal favourites by Michael Jackson, Dirty Diana, "D.D." is as good as any I have ever heard. With his now infamous unique sound, he transforms this super song into a killer twin. The mixtape has a general trend of substantial drums, which we may have expected having heard the early preview track "Initiation", which adds a new authoritative texture to his original take of R&B. And undeniably, it is incredible. "House Of Balloons" introduced his beliefs and changed the genre, and "Thursday" took us deeper into his world, but "Echoes Of Silence" is a whole new game-changer for me. Love it.

Abel Tesfaye ends what has been a highlight year with a true gift, and I hope there's more greatness to come next year, after making a massive mark on the world's music scene. As always, it's a free download through his website, available now. XO indeed.

THE WEEKND THE KNOWING OFFICIAL VIDEO

Without a doubt my artist of the year, The Weeknd has unveiled his first official video today for a track from his first mixtape. Up until this, he's provided just set stills with each of his tracks and links to fan-made videos, but teaming up with filmmaker Mikael Colombu, the official video for "The Knowing" has now been released.

In keeping with his music, this film is quite a mind fucker involving some real bizarre concepts on planet Ethio X. It's a picture of great intrigue and will for sure take a number of views to understand, if at all possible. I think he's just in his own drugged up world. Nevertheless, it's a very original take on music video and perhaps we'll see more in the future. But for now, I'm solely focused on the release of his third mixtape "Echoes Of Silence". It promises to be available in the next month.

DRAKE NEW ALBUM TAKE CARE

Drake's new album "Take Care" is officially out today - not to say that today will be the first time you'll listen to it. Like many of you, I've been listening to this all week and I love it. I had Drake down as another boring R&B artist when he debuted, but this year he's developed his music and his genre too into something quite special. Working with a crew of his producers and other artists, I think Drake, together with The Weeknd of course, has become a game changer for R&B and the sounds they're creating are spectacular. Using the classic beats that made the genre big, they've hit a field of music that is powerful, mellow and slightly trippy. It raises the hairs on my skin and I feel the vibes throughout. I'm more excited for The Weeknd's "Echoes of Silence" but this album will more than suffice until then. Their collaboration tune "Crew Love" is superb, best track on the album.

THE WEEKND INITIATION

The Weeknd continues his low-key promotion with another unexplained track released through YouTube. Unexplained it may be, but it doesn't take much to understand this is part of his upcoming mixtape, "Echoes of Silence", which is the third and last drop of his 2011 trio of debut mixtapes. The first two have been received in spectacular fashion with praise from all round, myself included. No details on the final instalment yet, but there's only so much of this year to go so it can't be too far away.

THE WEEKND THURSDAY MIXTAPE

After absolutely fucking ages of waiting, Abel Tesfaye, otherwise known as The Weeknd, has finally finally dropped his second mixtape "Thursday". Though I was convinced he would indeed release on a Thursday, which I was damn right about, I was off on the date by months. He's spent weeks and weeks teasing us through his various social networking accounts, in which we saw him preview two tracks off this album which were both proper super. The mixtape features 9 tracks unsurprisingly including a collab tune with Drake "The Zone". It's been widely known that the two of them have been pretty tight lately, working together on each other's material, in the pursuit of creating a new movement - a movement which I believe is already running on full gas, and one that excites me as the next generation of R&B.

This mixtape is the second of The Weeknd's suspected trilogy of work, with the next one to be called "Echoes of Silence". And I'm already buzzing to hear that too. His voice is one thing, but the production of these new wave of sound is excellent. I assume more things similar will be available first in the shape of Drake's next album "Take Care" set for an October 24th release. "Thursday" is up for download here and on his website in the hope of just sending his message and sharing his music, it's free.

It's not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or indeed Friday that people are going to be talking about now. We have a new favourite day of the week. Oh and the weekend too of course.

THE WEEKND DRAKE REMIX

Everyone knows The Weeknd and Drake are down, both working together on this new trippy brand of R&B. I'm still waiting on The Weeknd's second mixtape "Thursday" which should really be coming soon, perhaps on Thursday 20th June? For now though, he's just posted this remix of Drake's new track "Trust Issues", which only just dropped last week itself. I'm personally just mesmerised by Abel Tesfaye's voice and it works better for me.

THE WEEKND THE BIRDS PART 1

New material subtly dropped today. The mystery continues because I have no idea what this is, though I assume it's a track from his upcoming second mixtape "Thursday". Sounds amazing though.

THE WEEKND ROLLING STONE

Having been introduced to The Weeknd by a close friend, I have fallen in love. People say it's the future of R&B, and I fucking agree. He (or they?) are keeping things quite mysterious and secretive, with minimal information on their website, blog, etc. What I do know though is that there's a trilogy of mixtapes lined up, one of which was leaked late last year and subsequently released a couple months ago - it's called "House of Balloons" and I've had it on loop for weeks now. I've never heard a sound quite like it and its production is sublime.

Details of the next two albums are unknown, apart from their respective titles "Thursday" and "Echoes of Silence", but he's tweeted to say that 'Thursday" would be coming soon. I kind of assumed that that would be today (Thursday) but it's yet to go live. May have to wait til summer. But what I did find was this video, again with very little explanation of it, uploaded just yesterday. Whatever it is, it sounds amazing, that I am sure. Check it. The Weeknd is one to watch. My favourite artist of the moment without a doubt.