Blood Orange’s ’Essex Honey’: the top 5 songs to hear

Dev Hynes’ new Blood Orange album, Essex Honey, is his first in six years, a period of time during which he lost his mother, and subsequently a home and sense of belonging. This destabilizing period is what informs his new album, a record “created from a dreamscape of his journey working through grief” and “the way music has inspired, healed, and interwoven itself through Hynes’ life.” He recruited a superstar team of guest features to join him including Lorde, Caroline Polachek, The Durutti Column, Tirzah, Daniel Caesar, Liam Benzvi, Ian Isiah, and more to help complete its exquisite soundscape that sounds like an melancholic trip through the British countryside.

Ahead, find The FADER staff’s standout songs upon first listen, in no particular order.

I raced to press play on “The Field” as soon as I saw the features on Essex Honey’s most stacked posse cut, hoping against hope that I’d hear new melodies from Vini Reilly. The artist behind the Durutti Column is one of the late 20th century’s key guitarists, but health issues have long since waylaid him from his instrument. And while “The Field” is built on the back “Sing To Me,” one of Reilly’s best-loved tracks, Blood Orange elevates his take into a passionate reconstruction. A skittering jungle-esque beat and deep, oaky flourishes of Arthur Russel Cello energizes the canny weaving of guest vocalists Tariq Al-Sabir, Caroline Polachek, and Daniel Caesar. Too dreamy to be a club track and too lively to be a lullaby, “The Field” builds a sonic expanse all its own and burrows into its warmth. — Jordan Darville

Caroline Polachek’s voice has rarely sounded better than it does on “Mind Loaded.” It is used sparingly but her unmistakable tone wraps itself around a piece of chamber music that otherwise floats slowly in search of its shape. Talk of loneliness, confusion, physical inhibition, and the changing of seasons create a murky atmosphere, like a musical brain fog. It’s Polachek’s vocal that cuts through the gloom, a guiding light in confusing times. —David Renshaw

The piano melody that kicks off this song immediately pulls me in but “Vivid Light” is ultimately like three different songs held together by scotch tape. There’s the thumping central drum line, holding steady like a heartbeat, before a fluttering flute flies by, and later, Zadie Smith’s voice as an echo, singing about facing writer’s block. Something about “Vivid Light” feels boundless as a song in form and feeling, an ode to feeling emotionally scattered, lost, and searching that manifests as music that’s just as stunningly destabilized. —Steffanee Wang

Learning to live with grief is a funny thing because there are so many false ends. One day, you wake up and the world doesn’t feel like it’s gonna end and you think to yourself, “wow, maybe I really can live through this,” before getting pummeled in the gut a day later. But that brief window of respite is freedom, or at least valuable lucidity. “Life,” which comes mid-way through Essex Honey and is sandwiched between songs of deep despair, feels like one of those moments for Dev Hynes. It’s not happy but it’s content as he almost coaches himself through his grieving process: “I’m really gonna pace this, I’m gaining waves of daisies.” It breaks your heart. Spectral verses from Tirzah and Charlotte Dos Santos, feel like angels over his shoulders, lighting his long path forward. —SW

Dev Hynes is a master at putting unlikely musician pairings together and synthesizing something beautiful. “Mind Loaded” puts his alchemical skills on full display, finding the middle ground between hardcore’s biggest band Turnstile and ’90s electronic pop group Everything But The Girl. Brendan Yates and Ben Watt contribute to one of Essex Honey’s smoothest and simplest moments. “Couldn’t face the end of it. Pretend I’m not scared of it,” Hynes sings as a finely drawn saxophone laps up against delicate guitar strums. The song then takes on a chopped-and-screwed effect as Yates’ vocals kick in. That voice, so adept at riding the wave of a mosh pit, makes the whole thing feel like an anthem in miniature. —DR