Top 50 Essential Albums of The Year: Number Three – Blood Orange: Essex Honey
The year's most notable albums are permeated with a theme of grief. Considering the sharp and gloomy break with leadership answerability, defenses of vulnerable communities, and the intrusion of machine learning into creative fields, this musical preoccupation is not unexpected. As performers including Anna von Hausswolff and Rosalía sought elevation, and others a global superstar and KeiyaA delivered songs of defiance, Blood Orange delivers a deeply personal meditation on mourning.
A Personal Exploration of Grief
His fifth project as Blood Orange seems particularly aligned with the fragmented, unfocused mental landscape that follows the passing of a loved one. Named the album, its uneasy character is encapsulated in its raw opening lines. This verse could be read as juxtaposing the dying's acceptance with the living's inability to comprehend it: “In your grace, I searched for some purpose,” he intones. “Yet I discovered nothing, and I continue to seek for a truth.”
“All the music is shrouded in a wistful light, and progresses the way the mind does.”
Artistic Terrain of Seeking
This quest is far-flung. The album reimagines a well-known post-punk track into a driving anthem. Elsewhere, edgy post-punk tracks are charged with ire. A clearly soulful duet differs from easygoing, flute-dappled groove. The artist's concentration moves during particular pieces, repeatedly to discomfiting result. Suddenly, a breakbeat will burst in and stir up silky strings.
- Vivid Light: Boasts a collaboration with a celebrated author.
- Thinking Clean: Starts with clipped vocals and jerky piano before veering off into lush disco.
- Common Threads: Dramatic cello patterns recur across the album, like unexpected shocks back to pain.
Lived-In Beauty
When allowed to surround you, Essex Honey flows like breezes dancing outside a pane. Despite all its harsh opposites, it feels strikingly naturalistic. This is done not only through grounding hints of field recordings—bird calls, television clips, personal conversations—but due to the artist's mastery as an composer. Tunes somehow sound simultaneously accidental and exquisitely crafted.
A Chorus of Collaborators
The artist doesn’t often voice tracks by himself. The album's impressive list of features is a testament to a Rolodex built up over two decades in the industry. Yet these artists are not used ostentatiously; they act more like individual threads in a beautifully well-worn fabric, there as ballast and to express desolate emotions.
- One frequent contributor: Brings an heavenly presence with a pristine falsetto.
- Another notable appearance: Leverages a girlish grain to convey someone coming apart at the margins.
- Vocal interplay: Has Hynes' low voice shadowing the guest's, akin to an underworld figure confirming deepest anxieties.
The Ultimate Acceptance
This work brushes up against a particular philosophy: when the worst has transpired, how can something hold meaning? Hynes' impressionistic lyrics repeatedly return the past, clinging to memories. The artist almost shelving the album, doubting its purpose. An understanding of good luck—the capacity to offer creation with an listeners—transformed its purpose. The closing number finishes with a mirror image of the opening lyric, representing a yielding to the irretrievable. The arresting and instinctive album captures the sensation of a world reconfigured, tracing its painful new landscape with sensitivity.
