Freetown Sound
| Blood Orange
Freetown Sound
Freetown Sound is the third album by Dev Hynes recording as Blood Orange. It was released on 28 June 2016, three days before its originally announced release date of 1 July 2016. The album contains guest appearances by Empress Of, Debbie Harry, Nelly Furtado, and Carly Rae Jepsen. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Dev Hynes’ third album as Blood Orange is a searing and soothing personal document, striking the same resonant chords as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly or D’Angelo’s Black Messiah.
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Rolling Stone
R&B innovator explores identity and refuses borders on a deep avant-pop mixtape.
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Consequence of Sound
A bold, uncompromising statement against oppression and a striking representation of society's struggles.
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NME
A bold, challenging album about the social and generational forces that have shaped Dev Hynes’ sense of blackness.
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The Guardian
Jerking from 80s soul to spindly indie, via snatches of street noise and film samples, Dev Hynes’s grand personal statement is stuffed with fascinating ideas but feels unfinished.
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NPR
The elegiac melody disarms; his naked delivery delicately unnerves. It's the kind of record that announces a provocative artist has joined the ranks of profound ones.
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Drowned in Sound
If the blazing importance of the identity politics is still lost on you? Hey, you can still throw this on and fucking dance.
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The Needle Drop
Blood Orange makes an ambitious return with Freetown Sound.
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SPIN
Freetown Sound is an answer to the contrary: Even in hard times, it’s better to face everything all at once.
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The New Yorker
"Freetown Sound” is a wondrous tapestry of eighties dance and R. & B., shot through with questions about migration, Christianity, and black masculinity.
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Independent
Devonté Hynes’s latest outing as Blood Orange takes the soft-soul stylings of 2013’s Cupid Deluxe and mashes them together with African voices and percussion, saxophones and vox populi samples to create a sonic collage that seeks to marry the vision of Marvin Gaye with the methods of Frank Zappa.
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Crack Magazine
Freetown Sound is undoubtedly Hynes’ opus, albeit an imperfect one, and cements his position as one of the most distinctive figures in leftfield pop.
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Loud And Quiet
‘Freetown Sound’ is trite and mawkish and far too sugary sweet. Then again, this is a kaleidoscopic tour of Hynes’ inner world, and who am I to say that he’s not as sweet as he is clever?
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Slant Magazine
His nearly atonal, arrhythmic delivery is mindfully endearing, and his choruses, often three-chord bombs that land on a simmering and sustained final note, hit as deeply as they ever do.
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LONDON IN STEREO
It’s a Blood Orange record – there’s no two ways about it – but it’s one with infinitely more social standing than ever before, and it’s all the better for it.
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Northern Transmissions
Blood Orange has made Freetown Sound his most diverse and representative release yet.
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Irish Times
Passionate, personal, with a riveting activist edge.
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Exclaim!
The result is a sprawling, cut-and-paste, idea-rich album that moves the listener as much physically as emotionally, coating the harsh truths and lyrical pills here with clean, honeyed production and uptempo, undeniable rhythms.
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Transverso Media
Hynes creates a milieu of ideas and feelings that are deconstructed and expanded through sound and verse, letting the listener marinate in its complexity. The result is powerful and moving composition that new and old Blood Orange fans alike will appreciate.
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Clash Music
A complex, confused, and completely gripping work.
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Sputnik Music
Freetown Sound’s story of one person’s search for identity gave me comfort that I may be unique, but I’m not alone. I hope it gives you that comfort too.
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A.P. News
Thematically fragmented and musically cohesive, Blood Orange deftly explores the signs of the times on “Freetown Sound,” interpreting what’s going on both in and around us. It’s a very 2016 album that should withstand the test of time.
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The Line of Best Fit
It’s an album that feels haphazard but one that is luckily more hit than miss, and an album that ultimately needs to be experienced.
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All Music
Freetown Sound can come across as weighty, indecipherable chaos to some. But for anyone who can relate to him on some level, it's hard not to be in awe of a man as complicated as Devonté Hynes being able to compose such an insightful, personal experience.
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Los Angeles Times
Blood Orange's 'Freetown Sound' resonates with its of-the-moment topicality.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
It is not our place to give St. Augustine back his body; he has already built it to outlast us.
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A.V. Club Music
Hynes’ sense of self that listeners so adore comes from Freetown.
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Vulture Hound
Hynes finds strength in the midst of systemic oppression, and creates a deeply resonating and damn catchy album as a result.
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Baeble Music
Freetown Sound is a really good album.
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DIY Mag
‘Freetown Sound’ is the full documentation of Dev Hynes’ transition from scrappy post-punk wonder-kid to slinky New York vintage store aficionado. It’s capable of dazzling results.
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The Boston Globe
That he had an album so quietly revolutionary in him doesn’t come as such a surprise, given his rapid trajectory.
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Music OMH
There’s certainly more highlight than filler contained in Freetown Sound and it is, ultimately, an album that deserves to be heard.
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WLUW Radio
The album doubles as either a poignant listening experience (once one focuses on the lyrical content) or an easygoing dance album, showcasing Hyne’s astounding ability to his craft.
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Outloud
Dev Hynes has made a record both personal and culturally significant . . . But like any great artist, Hynes takes that and makes records that can make us move and groove.
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Spectrum Culture
Freetown Sound is an arresting work on multiple levels.
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Standard
From the slinky, clipped guitar on But You to the rickety rhythm on Desiree and the elegiac brass and beats on Squash Squash, there’s always something intriguing going on.
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Irish Examiner
With less obfuscation and a focus on engaging with the audience rather than challenging it just for the sake of it, he might have created a minor classic. Instead, Freetown Sound demands admiration but doesn’t particularly care for your love or empathy.
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Pop Matters
It’s a flawed love-letter to the '80s, to the people who just want to dance, to the people who feel marginalized, to the people who feel oppressed. Given recent events, it’s an uplifting album in embarrassing times.
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The Kids Wear Crowns
I do believe this is Dev Hynes best work and for one week, it helped me out of a slump.
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Treble Zine
This album, Blood Orange’s most ambitious work yet, is likely to fill many headphones and party playlists throughout an already strange summer—one for which its themes of personal and political conflict will be an appropriate accompaniment.
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Soundblab
Freetown Sound is a definitive representation of confindence from a major talent. It's the sound of defiance filtered through a kaleidoscopic lens whose shards of feeling color a pure cry born from the ugliness and pain of a reflected, "less than" perceived self.
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We Plug Good Music
It’s an album much in the same vein as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly – refreshing, topical and empowering, with the potential to be remembered as an immortal, classic album, the likes of which the public at large embrace during times of darkest political volatility.
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The 405
Freetown Sound is a safe space.
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Financial Times
Moments of drift, encapsulated by Hynes’s swooning vocal style, mitigate the effect of an otherwise striking concept.
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Coog Radio
Freetown Sound audio samples feel like layers being added to the dialogue on experience and identity – every layer a piece of history shaping Hyne’s own identity and artistry.
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PressPLAY OK
Hynes has lately taken a bit more subtlety to his work (as opposed to the pop queens he’s recently produced for) and that’s certainly the case for a lot of this 17-track marathon, which at times feels like a bit of a sketchbook.
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News OK
Blood Orange deftly explores the signs of the times on "Freetown Sound," interpreting what's going on both in and around us. It's a very 2016 album that should withstand the test of time.
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The Daily Indie
[Hynes'] third studio album as Blood Orange is called Freetown Sound and is an enrichment for the indie world.
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SCMP Radio
On his third album as Blood Orange, musical magpie Hynes creates a genre-mashing pop disco album full of identity.
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Follow News
While Hynes is a fantastic songwriter and producer, it's been a very long time since we've gotten a proper follow up.
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Radio 1190
Sprawling and expressive, Freetown Sound by Blood Orange is Radio 1190’s July CD of the Month.
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Princess Loz
While he speaks of experiences singular and personal to his own journey, Blood Orange is inclusive to all who can relish and relate to the words himself and his accomplices cry with utmost pain and poise.
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Retcon Nation
Freetown Sound is Hynes' moment to shine, let some of his grievances and uncomfortable truths with the world come to light, but in turn, you'll have a great time finding them out.
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NARC Magazine
Despite some ditties feeling a little like album fillers, tracks such as Juicy 1-4 leave us wanting to stick around and see what Hynes pulls out of his eclectically fashioned 80’s boxy cap next.
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NYLON
Blood Orange Makes His Mark Of Black Excellence On ‘Freetown Sound’.
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The Interns
Hynes doesn’t pretend to have all the answers on Freetown Sound but his astute, genuine and passionate observations make this record comforting to anybody who feels they don’t completely fit in a certain box.
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Odyssey
Blood Orange takes this stance firmly, and it is such an important message to hear in contemporary media sources. It's worth a listen even if to just hear this story told in a unique way.
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Vulture
Blood Orange’s Freetown Sound Is the ‘Passion’ of Black America.
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Spectrum Pulse
This is enough nuance to the themes and enough agreeable hooks and tones on this record that I can like it without loving it, so I'm giving it a light 6/10 and really only a recommendation if you're a big fan of the quieter side of 80s R&B.
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KSDB Manhattan
2016 hasn’t been a particularly strong year in music so far (there’s certainly still hope), but this is one of my favorites so far.
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The Round Table
Dev Hynes wrote and produced this album largely by himself and the end result is purely Blood Orange.
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Skiddle
It shines a light on social anxieties during a time when the world appears to going back on itself: ultimately this record translates as a cry for love and unity.
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Marble Music
Freetown Sound feels like an album for which it’s importance is boundless even if the music itself takes some missteps.
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XFDR Mag
There’s some really, truly interesting and mindful work on FREETOWN SOUND, and the individual highlights make up for the occasional shortcomings.
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Noisey
'Freetown Sound' is lovingly handmade, soothing, spectral, and political in the most elemental way.
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Denver Post
“Freetown Sound” is so deeply personal of an album that it’s impossible to understand at times. Songs end abruptly, adding to the inconclusiveness of Hynes’ work, and each lyric is layered intriguingly with Hynes’ personal history and politics.
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indie30
Hynes sings, ‘You are special in your own way’. Only those with true empathy and understanding can say this and actually mean it. And with this record Dev Hynes reminds us of that sentiment with every vital second.
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Atypical Beasts Agency
It’s smooth, angry, sexy and frustrated, but never ambivalent or verbose. It’s cool and clear, crisp and modern, but also intense and passionate and vivid and timeless.
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Northeast Valley News
The newest album from Dev Hynes' Blood Orange project is a genre-bending experience.
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Alt Music Box
Blood Orange’s latest genius adds to the recent growing musical art protesting against the ever growing, violent and institutionalised racism America’s PoC are facing today.
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Little Indie Blogs
‘Freetown Sound’ is a bold, if somewhat sombre and uncompromising work.
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Bonafide Mag
One of the year’s best releases – a stellar feat of alternative R&B – Freetown Sound is a consistently enthralling listen; each brilliant track written and composed by Hynes himself.
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Dork
The first Blood Orange album that is essential listening.
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KCRW Radio
Dev has a strongly recognizable sound and voice and is always up to something interesting.
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Sydney Scoop
Freetown Sound is the point at which the remarkable vision of Blood Orange has solidified into something wholly original and profoundly important.
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KJHK Radio
Freetown Sound is an album with a purpose. However, listeners don’t have to dissect the lyrics or breakdown the social message behind the beat should they choose to simply enjoy it at a surface level.
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