''Coastal Grooves'' is the debut studio album by

Blood Orange The blood orange is a variety of orange (fruit), orange with crimson, near blood-colored flesh. It is one of the sweet orange varieties (Citrus × sinensis, ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis''). It is also known as the raspberry orange. The dark flesh ...

. It was released on 30 August 2011 under

Domino Recording Company Domino Recording Company, or simply Domino, is a British independent record label based in London. There is also a wing of the label based in Brooklyn, New York that handles releases in the United States, as well as a German division called ...

. The album features no

guest appearance The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting. The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...

s and was produced by

Ariel Rechtshaid Ariel Rechtshaid ( ;) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixing engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. His accolades include three Grammy Awards for music production. Rechtshaid was the lead singer and guitarist of the ska ...

in Los Angeles. Domino Recording Company described the album as highlighting the glamour and drama of New York City in the 1980s.

Music

The album incorporates stylistic elements of

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

baroque pop Baroque pop (sometimes called baroque rock) is a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music. It emerged in the mid-1960s as artists pursued a majestic, orchestral sound and is identifiable for its appropria ...

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...

contemporary R&B Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music Music genre, genre, originating from African Americans, African-American musicians in the 1980s that combines rhythm and blues with elements of Pop music, pop, Soul music, soul, funk, Hip-hop, ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

, and

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

. By fusing many of these elements together, Blood Orange captures sounds of grooviness, reverbed guitar lines, and piano synths to create music that is described as being a part of a post-punk atmosphere. In a November 2013 article ''Complex'' magazine listed the album's cover as one of the "50 Best Pop Album Covers of the Past Five Years", also stating that Hynes was "inspired by transgender icons, like Octavia St. Laurent while he was wrapping production on the LP". In the music video for "I'm Sorry We Lied", produced by

and directed by Abteen Bagheri in 2012, the story follows Blood Orange and a woman's night life adventure in New York City. Aside from "I'm Sorry We Lied", many works on the album are also said to be inspired by the after-hours environment of NYC. In 2010, Blood Orange underwent throat surgery and as a result, the album is sung mainly in falsetto.

Critical reception

The album has a rating of 72/100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

based on 18 reviews, indicating generally favourable reviews. A reviewer for ''Pitchfork'' wrote that ''Coastal Grooves'' omits catchy choruses and melodies in favour of stark guitar lines and seductive mumbling but ultimately gave the album a rating of a 5.9/10.

Commercial performance

The track "Champagne Coast" went viral on social media platform

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

during July of 2024. The song also entered the Hot Alternative Songs chart at number 15, with almost 6 million streams.

Track listing

Personnel

Devonté Hynes Devonté Hynes (born David Joseph Michael Hynes, 23 December 1985), also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, composer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, ...

– vocals, music, lyrics, production, guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion, drums *

– production, percussion, mixing, engineering *

Nedelle Torrisi Nedelle Torrisi is an American musician who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Biography Torrisi grew up studying classical violin and performing in musicals. Her mother is an ex-nun and pianist, while her father was an ex-Jesuit priest and jazz drum ...

– additional vocals (2, 7) *

Justin Meldal-Johnsen Justin Meldal-Johnsen (born March 26, 1970) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter and musical director. He is best known for his work with artists such as Beck, Nine Inch Nails, M83, Air, St. Vincent, Wolf Alice, and Deafheave ...

– bass * Chris Rakestraw – additional engineering * Garrett Ray – drums *

Howie Weinberg Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer. Over the course of his career, he has received over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize. Career Weinberg mastered Herbie Ha ...

– mastering * David Schiffman – mixing * Brian Lantelme – photography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cupid Deluxe 2011 albums Dev Hynes albums Domino Recording Company albums