Blood Orange: Freetown Sound (2LP) [DOMINO]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set lets the album's long, flowing sequence play out across four sides. It was shortlisted for IMPALA's Album of the Year, and Exclaim! called it Hynes at his best.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Deana Lawson cover photograph

About the album

Freetown Sound takes its name from Freetown, Sierra Leone, where Dev Hynes's father was born, and it plays like a personal history heard through a radio dial. Hynes said he made it for anyone who had been told they were not black enough, too black, too queer or not queer the right way, and he recorded it all over New York, from his apartment to Washington Square Park and the dance studio at BAM.

Hynes produced it himself, folding in funk, 80s R&B, gospel, quiet storm and soca. "Augustine" is the centrepiece, Empress Of sings on "Best to You," Debbie Harry appears on "E.V.P.," and two Canadians join in: Carly Rae Jepsen on "Better Than Me" and Nelly Furtado on "Hadron Collider," which got extra engineering in Toronto. Voices from Ta-Nehisi Coates and poet Ashlee Haze are woven through the samples.

The cover is Binky and Tony Forever, a 2009 photograph by Deana Lawson, and the album shares its intimate, lived-in warmth. Two Canadian guests on one record is a ratio we heartily approve of, though we'd never say no to a third.

Also at Kops: more Blood Orange on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Domino (cat# WIGLP369), the 2016 album.