Blood Orange - Essex Honey Vinyl 2LP

Double vinyl LP pressed at 45 RPM. Essex Honey is an expansive meditation on family, grief, England, and the restorative, communal power of music across a lifetime. Lyrically, it moves between the diaristic and the collective, dwelling in the hazy space of memory that so often follows loss. That atmosphere carries through the music itself: warm analog recordings, recurring cello motifs, and subtle callbacks to earlier Blood Orange projects intertwine with musical fragments drawn from Dev Hynes’ youth. The album’s sound world stretches wide, from acoustic guitar run through punk distortion to ethereal melodic textures that recall the dreams of a kid in Essex imagining his future. Essex Honey also brings together an eclectic cast of collaborators, including The Durutti Column, Mustafa, Caroline Polachek, Daniel Caesar, Lorde, Zadie Smith, Tirzah, Brendan Yates (Turnstile), and Mabe Fratti.