Mac MillerCircles

Stripped-down, gentle, and strikingly spare, with loose guitar lines and nostalgic chords closer to indie rock than hip-hop. 'Good News' is a soft acoustic strum about acceptance and exhaustion, devastating in its posthumous light. 'Blue World' opens on a pitched-up Four Freshmen sample before the electronics kick in. 'Surf' drifts, sun-warmed and woozy. The sound of floating on your back and deciding not to worry anymore. Mac and producer Jon Brion had built such a bond that, as Brion put it, these were 'complete thoughts. They weren't thoughts I had to complete for him.' The companion to Swimming, forming the arc 'Swimming in Circles.' Sit with it.