Eclectic, dream-like, transitional and reflective with a late-summer smooth ambience and an over-riding theme of looking back on his Ilford childhood days, the 39-year-old British NY-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Dev Hynes returns with a fifth LP as Blood Orange, joined by a variety of other artists including Caroline Polachek and Lorde. Previously known as Lightspeed Champion, Hynes has also worked extensively with other artists as producer, so his guest list is as rich and varied as the sounds bubbling up on this record. Rich in piano, ripples of saxophone, and regularly featuring, for example, cello by Cæcilie Trier, there are many jump cuts of rhythm and sound that variously merge jazz, funk, synth-rich dance, pop and chamber styles. The album flits constantly, but is oddly fascinating like a stream of field recordings and layers of consciousness. Opener Look At You, then Thinking Clean alone seem to have at least two distinctly different sections in each, typifying an that seems, to quote TS Eliot, to be constantly mixing memory and desire, as well as samples of other tracks. “Regressing back to times you know / Playing songs you forgot you owned,” Hynes sings soulfully on Westerberg, with echoes of The Replacements’ 1987 single Alex Chilton. Work by Yo La Tengo and Everything But the Girl’s Ben Watt come into play, and a sample from the Durutti Column’s 1998 Sing to Me simmers up on the rather beautiful The Field. That and Mind Loaded are among the highlights, the latter featuring Polachek and Lorde both bringing sun-lit vocals of a click-like track and piano chords, the lyrics capturing that floating sense of memory: “Still broken (Broken), can't think straight (Straight)/ Mind loaded (Loaded), heart still aches (Still aches), with Lorde dreamily singing “Everything means nothing to me”, the breathy echo of the tragic Elliott Smith song of the same name. On Vivid Light, a song about writer’s block (“It's like you've never touched / A six-string guitar/ And the more you write/ You never get far”) it’s amusing to hear a line by novelist Zadie Smith. “And I listened every night/ Falling out the way/ Something made you stay/ Time will change you,” he sings of the catchy beats then still piano of I Listened (Every Night). Another rather beguiling track is The Train (King’s Cross), with Polachek on backing vocals is rather lovely, if melancholy set memories capturing the journey’s rhythm. Closing with the ethereal I Can Go, it’s another mysterious, candid, ethereal, beautiful, changeable, evocative and unusual composition, but one that rewards with new listens. Out on RCA / Domino.
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