Frank Ocean drops visual album Endless

R&B star Frank Ocean delighted fans on Thursday (18Aug16) when he released visual album Endless.

The Thinkin Bout You singer, who hasn't released an album since 2012, has been hinting at a new record since last year (15). Earlier this month Ocean hit headlines when he posted a cryptic live video stream on his website, showing an Apple Music-sponsored black and white video feed of a warehouse. Ocean updated his live stream on Thursday with footage of him building a staircase in the same warehouse, accompanied by new music.

He later unveiled the 18-track visual album, which features collaborations with musicians such as James Blake, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Jazmine Sullivan, with the London Contemporary Orchestra providing much of the beautiful background tunes thanks to its cello, violin, double bass and viola players.

While many have reported that Endless is Ocean's long-awaited new record, Rolling Stone reports that it is in fact a separate project to his upcoming second album, which was thought to be called Boys Don't Cry. The outlet claims Ocean has now scrapped the former name "in favor of an alternate title", which has yet to be announced. According to the publication, Ocean's new album is set to be released by Apple Music this weekend (20-21Aug16).

After the Endless stream finished, it was released exclusively on Apple Music, meaning you can only watch if if you are a subscriber of the music service.

Ocean fans have been desperately awaiting new material from the star, with producer Malay revealing earlier this month that the singer has been working hard to perfect the new record.

Malay, real name James Ho, reassured fans during a Reddit Q&A that Ocean had been "very focused and persistent yet very free" during the making of his new album, adding: "First of all we all massively appreciate and love you guys, Frank has told me this himself many times. To be fair though, art cannot be rushed. It’s about making sure the perfect aesthetic for the situation has been reached.

"To do that takes constant tweaking, trial and error. That goes for any creative situation."

Ocean's debut effort, Channel Orange, was critically acclaimed and nominated for six Grammys, landing one win for Best Urban Contemporary Album.