Earl Sweatshirt is the youngest member of the California skate-rap collective Odd Future, and he’s been missing in action ever since the crew came to prominence in mid-2010, even though his album EARL is probably the most compulsively listenable thing to come out of the crew. Some pretty reliable sources have supposedly discovered Earl at a youth camp in troubled Samoa, where, legend has it, his mother sent him after getting worried about the music he was making. Others have disputed that. But as far as we can tell, Earl appears to be back now, with a new song and everything.

After teasing the new track with a video and a Twitter account, this alleged Earl today posted a link to his new website, Terttle Fer, which has a stream of the new song “Home.” And yes, it really does sound like Earl, with all those twisted-up, remarkably complicated deadeyed rhymes over a diffuse, washed-out soul sample. It’s less than two minutes long, and it’s definitely worth a listen. Click here to hear it.

Cults now have a video for their oldies-radio weeper “You Know What I Mean,” and some serious stunt-work went into it. The group’s two members play two of the sides of a carnival love triangle, and Brian Oblivion (or his stunt-double) gets to do some huge high-dives and fire-jumps. Also, warning: Oblivion’s fire-scarred makeup job is no joke. Isaiah Seret directs. Watch the clip below.

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Sleigh Bells’ camp has confirmed that the duo will be the musical guest on the 2/18 episode of Saturday Night Live, where they’ll play Reign Of Terror cuts “End Of The Line” and “Comeback Kid.” Former SNL castmember and Bridesmaids star Maya Rudolph hosts, which is also pretty awesome. More looks for Sleigh Bells forthcoming — they cover the issue of SPIN on stands 2/28. Reign Of Terror drops 2/21 on Mom + Pop.

As a part of the fundraising effort for music journalism venture AdHoc.fm, the founders have put together a compilation (and a box set, for a larger donation) featuring artists like Beach Fossils, Pure X, Grimes, Blondes, JEFF The Brotherhood and many more. Today, How To Dress Well’s contribution, a cover of Xiu Xiu’s “Clowne Towne,” was posted to Ad Hoc’s Soundcloud page. Stream the track below.

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The video for “Yella Diamonds,” one of the many bangers on Rick Ross’s monstrous Rich Forever mixtape, features some hall-of-fame terrible acting, a genuinely disturbing home-invasion sequence, and an oddly prominent Ms. Pac-Man today. It also has Rick Ross doing some truly great head-shaking while rapping. Watch it below.

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Fresh out of the recently-profiled Huntsville rap scene, Jackie Chain has come through with some strong cuts in the last couple of months. Delivering on that promise, Chain’s new new mixtape, After Hours, a collaboration between the Alabama rapper and Fool’s Gold records co-founder Nick Catchdubs, is his most cohesive, most trunk-rattling release yet. Download it at Fool’s Gold.

Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg sometimes records solo as Oupa; we recently posted his Smog cover. And now he’s teamed up with one Tony Crow to record a gorgeous acoustic cover of “Backwords,” a piece of breezy, blissy synthpop from Porcelain Raft. Download Oupa’s cover below.

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In December, we reported that elusive, damaged genius Brian Wilson was back together with the Beach Boys, the once-estranged group he’d helped to make great. This year, they plan to tour together and release a new album. And at this Sunday’s Grammys, Billboard reports that they’ll all perform together for the first time in decades. But here’s the catch: They’ll do it in a joint performance with Foster The People and Maroon 5. Grammys! You’re fucking everything up! Again!

The Grammy producers’ thinking, I suppose, is that the Beach Boys, Maroon 5, and Foster The People are all rock bands from California. Seriously, that’s all I can come up with. That’s it. If anyone can think of a justification for this trainwreck, the comments section is all yours.

Yesterday, Lana Del Rey sang Born To Die songs at a jam-packed Amoeba Records as rumors swirled about her upcoming tour (the NY Post claimed that the tour had been cancelled because of the poorly-received SNL appearance before her camp squashed the rumor, though SXSW dates were cancelled and the Australian leg has been postponed). Building on the momentum from a really nice performance on Letterman, the singer looked relaxed and happy as fans squealed around her. She’s growing more confident and improving fast; it’s fun to watch. Oh, and she debuted at #2 on the Billboard chart, selling a pretty-solid 77,000 copies, so that’s nice, too. Check out some performance clips from the short set below and scope the photo gallery above.

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As a human being, Gucci Mane is a mess. Back when he was on his hot streak about three years ago, that was part of his charm. Like fellow Southern-rap face-tat aficionado Lil Wayne before him, Gucci rose to the top of the heap by methodically cranking out mixtape after mixtape in which he cleverly described his total inability/unwillingness to resist any sort of vice, delivering it all in a disarming mushmouthed singsong flow that predictably annoyed the hell out of many. People derided Gucci as mindless, even borderline-retarded, but his genius was there if you were willing to hear it. It was in his tricky voice patterns, his unashamed Alabama yokel charm, and the slippery verbal economy that would switch to outright brutality at a moment’s notice: “East Atlanta, cockin’ hammers, bandanas on car antennas / No, we do not talk to strangers / Just cut off these niggas’ fingers.” But as time wore on, that messiness came to affect his work as well as his life. And after the repeated prison stints, the face-tattoo of an ice-cream cone, and the time he threw a woman out of a moving car, he’s no longer rapping with the absurd verve he once had. Or, at least, he’s not doing it dependably. Last year, though, one of the many mixtapes he released was Return Of Mr. Zone 6, an extremely solid and enjoyable affair that seemed to promise a return to form. That didn’t happen. But how he’s back again with another moment of clarity in the new tape Trap Back. Chances are it won’t return Gucci to former glory. But it’s still a ridiculously entertaining hour of rap music. That’s all we can ask from Gucci Mane.

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