Blood Orange: Homecoming
Three years since their last release, Devonté Hynes returns as Blood Orange with a succinct yet affecting delivery on Four Songs.
By Ian Eisenbrand
In their work over the past decade, Devonté Hynes has shaped into a modern pioneer of songwriting under their popular pseudonym in, what is to this day, an unrepeated brand. Across several releases, the name of Blood Orange has become synonymous with unparalleled avenues of songwriting; most notoriously, Hynes has forged their sound in wandering compositions across spiraling concept albums, embossing a formless stamp of alternative R&B over Blood Orange’s discography. Interestingly, though, with over three years since their last release, Hynes’s artistic evolution takes on a new face in their latest project. While their latest work maintains the typical Blood Orange sound, the project takes a much more minimal approach than any previous release, with a brief runtime of only eleven minutes and a symbolically unvarnished title: Four Songs. Although this downscale could be merely viewed as a curtailing of previous releases, more than anything, Four Songs serves as an, albeit brief, long-awaited homecoming to the ethereal landscapes of Blood Orange’s work.
Droning synth bass distortions and crackling electronic drum patterns shudder the opening moments of “Jesus Freak Lighter,” the opening track and leading single of the EP. In trademark fashion, though, Hynes does away with the initial tone of the track as quickly as it appears, instead building its remaining runtime on a warm front of washing guitar riffs and twisting electric piano chords. Upon entry into the central portion of the piece, Hynes’s signature falsetto flutters across the instrumental of the track, delivering a cryptic narrative infused by rapidly shifting pastel contrasts of religion, sex, and heartbreak alongside striking background vocals by perennial collaborator Ian Isiah. Most importantly, though characteristically abstract in its delivery, “Jesus Freak Lighter” sets a precedent for Hynes’s sonic and lyrical focus surrounding beauty and tragedy in the transience of life’s phases on the rest of the project.
In an almost disturbingly imperceptible transition, Four Songs reaches its halfway point as “Jesus Freak Lighter” blurs into “Something You Know.” Phasing guitar melodies dance over dry acoustic drums and a hypnotizing bassline as Hynes sings mostly in opaque metaphors that are ironically driven by repeated assertions that the listener should understand each figure of speech as they come (“oh, it’s something you know”). Pivotally, the lyrical themes of “Something You Know” contribute to a lingering taste of disquiet within the track that sticks around for the rest of the project as if there are looming realities in the world of Four Songs that the audience can’t be made aware of. The piece, while relatively minute in relation to the centerpiece tracks of the album, serves as a fascinating interlude within the momentum of the project.
Following the currents born on “Something You Know,” a somber crest in the tracklist is reached in soft waves of synth pads floating over crisp drumlines and low, flickering guitar melodies in “Wish.” The lyrical composition of the track forms a tragic cast of a love forged in sun-dried clay, holding no ability to rectify its bust with the changing faces of its subjects. In light of this, though, Hynes does not attempt to protect this sculpture or to make its frame more malleable. Instead, he chooses to stand by the cast’s brevity as its glaze peels away, its terracotta cracking and fissuring into strewn fragments across the runtime of the track. “Wish” opens this sculpture of love to be experienced in an untouched mold, even if its mosaic was never meant to last the heat of its kiln.
In the final and fourth track, titled “Relax and Run,” Hynes calls to Erika de Casier and Eva Tolkin, frequent Blood Orange collaborators, in flurries of vocal harmonies over plucking piano keys, whistling synth leads, and drumming 808s, cooling the swelter gathered by “Wish.” The track, much like the rest of the project, wrestles with the oscillating lenses with which Hynes views the withering structure of Four Songs, diverting between tacit disregard and grave acceptance over different sections of the piece. However, a closing refrain is built in the midst of shifting bridges:
“I’m running, to death, I’m running, I want to go faster”
In this, “Relax and Run” encapsulates the central theme of Four Songs, residing in what is sweet and tragically fleeting, inevitably razed by the unfolding of time. Yet, Hynes makes no claims against the looming reality of death in life, instead resting in the embers that deposit in the air, choosing to find beauty in both the momentary refuges of life and the predetermined kindling of their ends.
In tandem with the EP’s release, Blood Orange performed their final show as the opener for Harry Styles's 15-night run of sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden on September 21. While no further tour dates are currently settled, see Blood Orange’s website https://www.bloodorange.net/ for more information.