Rushed emergency edition of our weekly recap as we are going on a holiday back home to Madrid. Beginning with the albums that can be streamed this week: THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS poptastic ‘Together’ at NPR; FLYING LOTUS’ groundbreaking ‘Cosmogramma’ at MySpace and COCOROSIE’s debut for Sub Pop ‘Grey Oceans’ @ Soundcloud. Looking back, the classic hardcore of CEREMONY’s ‘Sick’ is being re-issued and can also be streamed in full.

Headlines of the week sadly went to hip-hop legend GURU; The ex Gang Starr and head of the collaborative Jazzmatazz projects lost his battle against cancer. A controversial letter praising his associate Solar and putting distance with his Gang Starr partner DJ Premier also hit the news.

Many free stuff offerings came our way, beginning with FUCK BUTTONS being the latest guests of the Daytrotter sessions. Dark shoegazers SALEM giving away their new ‘Raver Stay With Me’ mix through DIS magazine; GILLES PETERSON & FOUR TET compiling a podcast to praise the memory of the late Steve Reid; Hip-hop Star GAME offering ‘The Red Room mixtape’ to pave the way for his forthcoming album. And nu-cumbia DJ EL REMOLON being in charge of the ninth volume of ZZK records’ regular mix.

Video of the week goes to M.I.A’s new single ‘Born Free’. Directed by Romain Gavras, who’s no stranger to controversy thanks to previous clips like Justice’s ‘Stress’, the video’s violent images reflect the artist’s statement against the way Tamil warriors were treated in the recent war in Sri Lanka. It shows red-haired kids being prosecuted and tortured by the army and has just been banned by youtube.

On a lighter note, new Brooklyn act EFFI BRIEST showed an impressively kaleidoscopic video for their track ‘Mirror Rim’

And acclaimed brits THE XX keep on growing stronger. This time the Londoners offered a curiously choreographed video for one of their debut album’s favourites, ‘Island’. This week they were also announced next to Tony Bennett, Ozzy Osborne and Scissor Sisters as one of the stars in the Itunes series of free gigs at the Roundhouse.

Sweden kept offering more signs of the good health its popular music is enjoying with this mysterious clip for a new project called CEO. Later on the week we found out it’s the new venture by one half of The Tough Alliance.

In Spain, Triangulo De Amor Bizarro introduced their new work ‘Año Santo’ with the clip for the single ‘De La Monarquía A La Criptocracia’. The track has already been a huge hit in our loop.

And we end this week’s review in high spirits, jumping from Spanish coolest indie to Latin America’s tackiest stars. Three of them: La Tigresa Del Oriente; Wendy Sulca and Delfin have joined forces with the noble enterprise of launching a bridge of friendship and brotherhood between the Spanish speaking continent and Israel; powerful enough as to provoke an unprecedented diplomatic Storm. Israel…You’ve been warned!!