On Saturday night, Twitter was all, well, atwitter over the fact that the elusive electrodance producer had seemingly released his debut album after years of speculation, in a stream on Bandcamp and for download at the price of £7. The majority of the surprise came from the fact that Jai Paul chose to release the record, which we'd been waiting for since his initial single “BTSTU” came out in 2007, during Coachella weekend, one of the biggest music festivals in the world. It was strange behavior, even for Jai Paul. The few who didn't make it to Coachella or who don't have a social life were able to take a listen on Saturday night before most of the world woke up on Monday morning in a dust-ecstasy haze to see it was still available. The album, which is supposedly self-titled, is 16 unnamed tracks long and is predictably a treat to the ears. It's everything we wanted and more.
But the issues began Monday morning when it appears that Jai Paul has taken to Twitter (for his first ever tweet, mind you) to explain that the album was leaked illegally. How could an album get hosted on Jai Paul's Bandcamp page without his consent? What kind of person would do this kind of thing? It did seem a little strange that we saw no official press release or motions from XL Recordings to give light/amp the anticipation for the record. Even stranger, however, is that after Jai Paul's Twitter statement, the album still remained for download and streaming at his site until around 9:30 this morning. Now it's been removed entirely. What is going with the Jai Paul record? Stay watching our site for updates.
Just in case you had to know, there is an unforgettable cover of Jennifer Paige's “Crush” on the record. Maybe now you'll never know.
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
— Jai Paul (@jai_paul) April 15, 2013
