Unbest

Julia Askenase on Blood Orange’s Coastal Grooves (2011)
(iTunes, Rdio, Spotify) 

This past spring, I became invested in the idea of profiling Dev Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion, for his latest endeavor, Blood Orange. Ah, but rejection is part of the freelance-writing game, and my pitch never panned out. Still, spending as much time and energy as I did becoming well-versed on Hynes—reading up on his background, tracing his influences, listening intently to his early tracks—left me eagerly awaiting his full-length, Coastal Grooves.

The Blood Orange demos, home recordings and Terrible Records 7” I heard back then radiate a soft ’80s glow culled from the decade’s pop perfections (and excesses) and smooth R&B jams. Bumping 808 bass hits, whip-crack snares and funky bass lines abound on tracks like “Bad Girls,” “Dinner,” and “Sex Cray.” (I hear echoes of Prince and early Janet Jackson, some New Jack Swing-ers, and a slew of one-hit wonders). While he sometimes busts out an emphatic whine, Hynes mostly sings Blood Orange with a sultry, hushed delivery, complementing his airy synth and guitar riffs that flutter and cascade in upper register. In my mind, these songs belong to the wee hours of the night: They shift from exuberant and dancefloor-ready to dark, sexy, and spooky—fit to soundtrack the neon-lit walk home.

Listening to Blood Orange sent me down a long road of ‘80s-into-early-’90s pop culture history. The YouTube “music videos” for his demos featuring television and movie footage from the era (see here, here, and here) definitely transported me to the time. It also get me thinking, however, about that dicey little debate as to whether musical style can be considered innovative if it relies too heavily on aesthetics of the past. I’m mainly referring here to the latest book by seasoned rock scribe Simon Reynolds, Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, which is waiting for me in my Amazon wishlist. (I’m still a little scared it will undermine so much of the music I’ve loved in the last decade.)

But then I return to the video for the demo version of “Sutphin Boulevard,” composed of scenes from Paris Is Burning, the 1991 documentary that illuminated New York City ball culture. This quote from a Q&A with Hynes for Interview really hit me:

“I find New York, early 80s gay culture so amazing—the ball culture, what they created, how they expressed themselves. I admire them endlessly for their bravery. I can’t even imagine how difficult it was to be young, black, and gay 30 years ago. When I was younger growing up in Essex—a small town in England—I dressed pretty weird, and a lot of my friends were gay, so I essentially grew up as a gay kid even though I was straight. I had all the abuse—was spat on daily, called a fag, was pushed around. The whole aesthetic of Blood Orange is basically a celebration of gay culture…”

Learning this back-story imbued the ‘80s motifs with greater emotional depth, and I came to see the whole project in a new light. Musically, I think Blood Orange works because the references serve as a familiar base from which Hynes leaps in unpredictable directions. I adore the muted, plucky guitar style he favors and the way he incorporates the essence of Eastern strings into his melodies. On Coastal Grooves, which ended up being much more about guitar and acoustic percussion than synthetic flourish, Hynes features a shredding hair-metal solo (“Forget It”) and some reverby, Elvis-via-Chris-Isaak rockabilly style (“Can We Go Inside Now”) alongside his staple chiming staccato. If Hynes is retro-fixated, then “Sutphin Boulevard” remains his crowning achievement in subtlety: It melds the best elements of ultra-specific influences into something fresh, unrecognizable and catchy as hell.

I wish I loved Coastal Grooves from start to finish without feeling the urge to skip a track, but that’s not true. I’d say it’s got a stellar three quarters going for it. There are some early demos I think would have better served the album, and some of the newer tracks are too whiny for my tastes. Looking at Blood Orange cumulatively, though, it’s the project that meant the most to me in 2011. If nothing else, it provides the perfect excuse to add a little strut to your step, earbuds in, as you bask in the fluorescent gleam of your respective city. I do it all the time.

Julia Askenase is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Paste and Philadelphia City Paper. She blogs intermittently.