new music: blood orange turns his latest album ‘freetown sound’ into a haunting album-length discussion of race, religion, sexuality, and gender #soundcheck

Kicking off with a clip of Ashlee Haze’s inspired poem “For Colored Girls (The Missy Elliot Poem),” Dev Hynes launches into an album-length discussion of race, religion, sexuality, and gender. His latest album as Blood Orange, the haunting and captivating Freetown Sound, takes its name from the capital of Sierra Leone, the birthplace of Hynes’ father. Throughout tracks like lead single “Augustine,” and the Carly Rae Jepsen-assisted “Better Than Me,” Hynes looks at the ways past pain continues to influence the present. Throughout there’s the sense of trying to work out an identity in the face of a world that would prefer you anonymous.

With guest vocals from Debbie Harry, Nelly Furtado, Empress Of, Kelsey Lu, and the aforementioned Carly Rae Jepsen, Dev Hynes uses female vocals to engage with queerness and feminine power. Hynes explained to EW, “I guess I just view women higher…I don’t know what it is. I think women are so powerful. Not just in the fact that I genuinely prefer female voices—that is a big part of it—but there’s also a particular power that women can put across that men just can’t.” So it’s no surprise that he frequently gives his female collaborators the best moments on the album. “Better Than Me” uses Jepsen’s voice to ask questions about what is “black enough” and “queer enough.” Hynes clarifies “I don’t know if she knows that’s what it’s about.” The Twin Peaks-esque “Hadron Collider” is more properly a Nelly Furtado track featuring Blood Orange. Ava Raiin meanwhile positively steals every moment she’s featured in.

The album is sparse, often consisting of just a retro beat and sustained synth pads. It’s a far cry from Hynes’ dance-punk days with Test Icicles, more interested in Camille-era Prince than Public Image Ltd. But when Hynes and Debbie Harry turn up on “E.V.P.” Dev Hynes finds the perfect balance between mood and rhythm. Throughout, Freetown Sound is a surprisingly dense album for something so sparse, inviting multiple listens.

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