Freetown Sound
Solemn, wrenching and totally stunning; *Freetown Sound* proves Dev Hynes has become one of pop’s great alchemists. Named after Sierra Leone’s capital (his father’s hometown), it’s an album, says Hynes, “for the under-appreciated.” Its dominant themes—exquisite heartbreak and displacement—check that description out. The music—scintillating, poised, and sticky synth-soul—make it a record for the under-appreciated to hold very close. Highlights are bountiful, but the ecstatic “Best To You” receives a glorious Real Thing assist and “Hadron Collider”, a mercurial Nelly Furtado ballad, will long stay with you.
Freetown Sound is the third album from Devonté Hynes aka Blood Orange. Written and produced by Hynes, Freetown Sound is a tour de force, a pastiche of Hynes’ past, present, and future that melds his influences with his own established musical voice. For well over a decade, Devonté Hynes has proven himself a virtuoso of versatility, experimenting with almost every conceivable musical genre under a variety of monikers. After moving to New York City in the mid-2000s, Hynes became Blood Orange, plumming the oeuvres of the city’s musical legends to create a singular style of urgent, delicate pop music. Freetown Sound, which follows 2011’s Coastal Grooves and 2013’s breakthrough Cupid Deluxe, builds upon everything Hynes has done as an artist, resulting in the most expansive artistic statement of his career. Drawing from a deep well of techniques and references, the album unspools like a piece of theater, evoking unexpected communions of moods, voices, and eras. Freetown Sound derives its name from the birthplace of Hynes’ father, the capital of Sierra Leone. Thematically, it is profoundly personal and unapologetically political, touching on issues of race, religion, sex, and sexism over 17 shimmering songs.
Dev Hynes' third album as Blood Orange is a searing and soothing personal document, striking the same resonant chords as Kendrick Lamar’s *To Pimp a Butterfly or *D’Angelo’s Black Messiah.
In an Instagram post three weeks ago, Devonté Hynes, better known as Blood Orange, explicitly declared who his third record is for: “everyone told they’re not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way, the [underappreciated]… it’s a clapback.” It’s for those who, like Hynes, find themselves at odds…
The key to getting your head around Blood Orange’s sprawling, hugely ambitious and occasionally unwieldy third album lies with two songs you won’t find on the tracklisting.
A grand statement from a notoriously cagey artist, Freetown Sound is an album that needs to be experienced, regardless of how haphazard it might be
'Freetown Sound' is the full documentation of Dev Hynes’ transition from scrappy post-punk wonder-kid to slinky New York vintage store aficionado. It's capable of dazzling results.
Also C. W. Stoneking - Gon’ Boogaloo, Jacob Collier - In My Room, and Frank Zappa - The Lumpy Money Project/Object
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If the masterful Cupid Deluxe found Dev Hynes perfecting the sound of Blood Orange, Freetown Sound is his attempt to perfect the project's message, saying everything he's always wanted to say while attempting to remove himself as the central voice.
Having had multiple previous incarnations as part of Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion, Dev Hynes is a man of many musical faces.
Given that it has now been running for longer than his Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion projects combined, Devonte Hynes’ Blood Orange moniker
The album has the potential of a personal masterwork, but its master is more conductor than confessor.
'Freetown Sound' by Blood Orange, album review by Gregory Adams. The full-length is now out on Domino Records. Blood Orange, plays June 30th in Copenhagen.
Jerking from 80s soul to spindly indie, via snatches of street noise and film samples, Dev Hynes’s grand personal statement is stuffed with fascinating ideas but feels unfinished
Blood Orange’s new album Freetown Sound is an arresting work on multiple levels: in its portrayal of a black person in a landscape overflowing with hostility, violence and tension; and in its relation of struggle with self-acceptance and personal identity, particularly within a marginalized community.
Freetown SoundArtist: Blood OrangeGenre: AlternativeLabel: DominoFrom Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion to Blood Orange (not forgetting, of course, his songwriting collaborations with the likes of FKA Twigs, Solange Knowles and Sky Ferreira), Dev Hynes has shed a few skins across the past 12 years.