Blood Orange: Coastal Grooves - review

Once Shoreditch's answer to Zelig, popping up in the background of every micro-trend, Dev Hynes has relocated to the States. His music has changed, too, the delicate folk of Lightspeed Champion shed in favour of the sound of the 80's British invasion: Flock of Seagulls, China Crisis, Duran Duran et al. This isn't quite as naff as it appears, though. Hynes picks apart his influences – the chiming guitar tones, staccato basslines and pumped-up drum patterns – and gives them room to breathe. The result is a low-end-heavy collection that lends an air of mystery and menace to Hynes's tales of love and loneliness. Not that his characteristic whimsy is entirely hidden; it's still apparent in the earnest plea to "get the funk out of my house", or the needlessly smooth invitation, "Baby love, would you like to be my little girl?" But Hynes has shown a capacity to reinvent himself once again here, and in a way that may prove acceptable to his new neighbours.