SOUNDTRACK: BLOOD ORANGE-Tiny Desk Concert #820 (January 29, 2019).
One night when I was going to a concert at the small club The Foundry, the main stage Fillmore had sold out for someone called Blood Orange, whom I’d never heard of.
And now he is at a Tiny Desk Concert. From the name (and the popularity) I assumed it was an intense dance show. I don’t know what Blood Orange normally sounds like but nothing could be further from loud dance music than this Concert.
Devonté Hynes is the main man behind Blood Orange. He is “a groundbreaking producer and songwriter” and “a composer who fits as comfortably in the worlds of R&B, gospel and electronics as he does in the classical world of someone like Philip Glass.”
Blood Orange addresses
themes of identity, both sexual and racial, through the eyes of a black East Londoner (now living in New York).
For me the most powerful song was the first one, “By Ourselves.” I don’t love the saxophone sound, but it’s the words that are so moving.
The opening song at the Tiny Desk, “By Ourselves,” features Dev Hynes on piano, Jason Arce on saxophone, Eva Tolkin and Ian Isiah on vocals along with a powerful spoken word performance by Ashlee Haze. Ashlee’s story is a tale of finding herself and her identity in the words and music of Missy Elliott when she was, in Ashlee’s own words, an eight-year old, “fat black girl from Chicago” who discovered “she could dance until she felt pretty” and “be a woman playing a man’s game.”
Her spoken word is amazing–moving, powerful and inclusive in many ways. It will resonate, I hope. And Hynes’ piano playing at the end is just lovely.
Ian sings the opening melody with a gorgeous falsetto.
“Jewelry,” the second song performed, welcomes Mikey Freedom Hart on piano while Dev moves on to electric guitar and vocals reminiscent of a languid Jimi Hendrix, with soul-baring lyrics of pride.
Hynes switches between spoken word (with his great deep, accented voice) and delicate singing. Then the song shifts gears entirely as he starts playing a gentle echoed guitar. I don’t hear Jimi Hendrix (maybe in his echoed guitar playing), I hear more of a Prince vibe.
The group then offers a rendition of “Holy Will,” inspired by the Detroit gospel group The Clark Sisters, as singer Ian Isiah takes this song of praise to a whole new level.
Introducing the song he says, “This song, my family Ian Isiah is gonna… tear the fuck up. Can you swear on this? You put the thing before hand that says explicit language, right?” And Isiah does tear it the fuck up. It’s a quiet song but Isiah’s voice (especially when paired with Eva Tolkin) is almost otherworldly.
For the final song, “Dagenham Dream” everyone but Ian and Eva leave.
Dev Hynes works an organ sound while singing about being beaten and bullied as a school kid in his hometown of Dagenham in east London.
I love the cool organ sounds and the way the seem to rise out of the deep darkness into a bright note of hope.
The power of each of these songs is magnified by the way Blood Orange has woven this performance together. He’s a rich, rare and caring talent we first met 11 years ago in a grassy field in Austin, Texas back when he still used the moniker Lightspeed Champion. Now his thoughts are deeper, his message of finding one’s place in this world more deep-seated, with a clarity few artists ever achieve.
[READ: November 2, 2018] “Friday Black”
I’m not sure how many Esquire issues have a short story in them. I thought about going back to previous issues and seeing just how many stories there are over the course of 85 years. But it’s a little hard to read their website when it comes to what’s actually fiction and what just talks about fiction.
So, I’ll be content with stories like this one, which I loved.
The story opens with ravenous humans howling at a gate. The narrator explains that he is sitting on a cabin roof with an eight-foot metal pole. He uses it to grab hangers off the highest racks and to smack down Friday heads. For this is a zombie story about Black Friday.
I Just Read About That... 