Many moods Blood Orange
Dev Hynes moves between heartbreak and joy in Essex Honeyhis most personal album.
First of all, grief is very personal. If hope is the feathered, floating, wonderful feeling we all know, then grief is its opposite: a universal emotion that is nonetheless largely private and impossible to convey in its depth. Grief creates a gap between you and other people. I find this ironic given its versatility. We will all lose someone or something fundamental, but this certainty doesn't make it any clearer. It does resonate though; it really resonates with others.
The impenetrability of grief is a theme that is at the center of Blood Orange's fifth and final album. Essex Honeywhich is more of a collection of complaints. Dev Hynes (the pseudonymous artist) is often serious and often brooding – check out his albums. Negro Swan And Cupid Deluxe— but here the tone is different, simpler and darker. While the album is not without moments of healing, they are also personal.
But what I like about Essex Honey it is an attempt to cross the unbridgeable gap between Hines' grief and our own. He attracts us even if his pain and ours remain separate. Essex HoneyThe effectiveness is in the detail, in the way Hines is able to lead us to the source of his grief; the room is not sealed and now he invites us to enter.
From the very beginning Essex Honeythe mood is introspective and transportive. “Look at You” begins with repeating synth triplets, Hines’ reverb voice, and powerful bass; its first lines hint at deep loss. “By your grace I've been looking for some meaning / But I haven't found it and I'm still searching for the truth / It's hard to look at you,” he sings.
On his second song, “Thinking Clean,” Hines croons, “What if it all came from below? / I don't want to be here anymore / One hundred and eighty-six / Miles an hour, time flows / What if everything was taken from below? / I don’t want to be here anymore.” He sings these lines so sweetly that it's almost easy to miss the point. But repetition – like singing – drives home the message. Some typically melancholic piano parts highlight what we are supposed to feel.
Hines, however, is careful not to let his darkness completely consume his music. “Somewhere In Between” is more soulful and has a beautiful sound, with a lone electric harmonica floating above electric bass and plucked guitar. Although the lyrics are no less sad. “And if it's not like they said it's somewhere in the middle / So I give in to being just a body with tired limbs / When the world is in your hands, you can't be inside it,” Hynes sings, giving about the most perfect description of heartbreak I can imagine. And then: “Know that I can’t pretend that I know it ends / I just want to see one more time (Oh).” The track dissolves.
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This dissonance between lyrics and music continues throughout the album. In my opinion, this is similar to the experience of grief: it is not always only sadness – sometimes there is joy. On “The Field,” Hines combines multiple voices to create a polyphonic choir that sings a multi-voiced tale of nostalgia and a faded past. Even if it's in sepia tones, the lyrics don't evoke any emotion: “It's hard to let you go / See you and I know why it's always gray (It's always gray, it's always) / It's hard to let you go (Oh) / It's great when we pray (Yeah) for a ride home (For a ride home).”
In “The Field,” grief lives in the gap between past and present, in the knowledge that things will never—ever—be the same. We move forward because they can't. In “The Village,” grief is metaphorically woven into the world around us: “Perhaps you are alive?” a voice—not Hines’s—sings. Are you “trying to hide in the fields”?
Perhaps it should be said here that, despite all the heavy themes and lyrics, Essex Honey amazingly sweet. The production feels honeyed. Here, Hines plays to his strengths, allowing his voice to penetrate the guitars and synths. Although that's not always the case: on “The Last of England,” the song that most directly touches on the source of Hines' grief, the first thing we hear is an archival sound (maybe a mother?) saying, “It was so modern, that's what you did!” [unintelligible]…that’s a really powerful message.” This is similar to how a parent appreciates the creative achievements of their child.
Then there's the piano and Hines himself. “There’s nothing left to do but leave/In the corners of the room/They gave me a knitted heart/I wash my hands and look down the drain,” he sings, placing us in the room where it happened. “Sitting in the dark of the room, you still fell asleep / Time showed that we could talk / But then they took you away.” And then an unexpected sound change: insistent percussion, quickening tempo. Movement, life, warmth – it's all still there, although part of it is still in the room where the loved one died.
And yet, as if deeply personal Essex Honey maybe this is a group project too. Lord and Caroline Polachek appear, as do Tirza, Durutti's Column, and Charlotte Dos Santos. What kind of saying is this? “Shared grief is grief halved, and shared joy is double joy.” This is put into practice here, in the absurdly cheerful “The Train (King's Cross)” and the happy/sad “Mind Loaded” and “Scared of It”. Hines uses his guest stars to surprising effect; they add texture, life, their own sorrows—and yes, their own joys, too.
Essex Honey This is a wonderfully vulnerable and sometimes joyful album. It's about loss, but it will make you feel less alone if you let it. We are talking about what cannot be restored; it's also about what fills that new empty space. “Time will change you,” Hynes sings on “I Listened (Every Night).” Here's the hardest thing to learn about grief: Over time, things will change; nothing will be the same as it is now. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—all we can do is carry on.
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