Third Coast Percussion - Fields

Cedille Records releases "Fields," the latest album from Third Coast Percussion, with music composed by Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange).The first album to feature Hynes' classical compositions, "Fields" includes three works written for and arranged by Third Coast Percussion

Over the past several years, Third Coast Percussion's albums for the dynamic Cedille Records have included 2018's "Paddle to the Sea," whose title track was collaboratively composed by all four members of the quartet; and 2016's "Third Coast Percussion | Steve Reich," the winner of the 2017 GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. This fall, TCP continues to expand the possibilities of the percussion repertoire with the release of "Fields," featuring the first-ever recordings of classical compositions by Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange).

Although he is best known as a performer and producer in the R&B and pop music spheres, classical music was the first music Dev knew, first as an observer at his older sister's piano lessons, and later as a young cellist. Even today, Dev still considers classical music the foundation of his musical background, citing Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Giacomo Puccini, and Philip Glass as particular influences on his sense of melody and timbre.

Third Coast Percussion, though longtime fans of Dev's work as Blood Orange, first came to know him personally through the choreographer Emma Portner. TCP was at the time immersed in a collaborative project with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Portner was one of the choreographers involved. She had worked with Dev on several of his music videos, and suggested him as a natural fit for this project, and for TCP's adventurous style.

Dev composed all the music for the project in a Digital Audio Workstation, and sent recordings and sheet music to Third Coast Percussion for them to orchestrate for their own instruments. Each of the four members of TCP worked on arranging and orchestrating a different section, offering feedback on each other's work, and eventually sending their versions back to Dev and the choreographers. Although this was TCP's first time working with a composer in this way, their naturally collaborative ethos made the process exhilarating and ultimately liberating.

"This was the first time I've written music that I've never played, and I love that," said Dev. "It's something I've always been striving to get to. Seeing what Third Coast Percussion had done with these pieces was magical."

The actual music is a blend of Dev's love of classical and minimalist music with many of the characteristic elements of his work as Blood Orange-lush and powerful synth pads, beautiful melodies, intricate, light, bubbly rhythmic structures. In "Perfectly Voiceless," a wall of Philip Glass-esque old school minimalism parts to reveal a catchy pop melody; "There was Nothing" blends epic synthesizer sounds with bowed mallet percussion instruments, and includes moments of meditative lyricism reminiscent of Lou Harrison; and the expressive harmonies buried in the hazy textures of "For All Its Fury" point to Dev's love of Debussy.

"We've always felt that the future of classical music depends on deepening the collaborative process and removing the strict barriers between composers and performers," TCP writes in the liner notes to the album. "Dev gave us a beautiful field to play in, and we think the music that resulted couldn't have been created any other way."

Producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and vocalist Devonté Hynes is one of the most influential voices in music today. Raised in England, Hynes started out as a teenage punk in the UK band Test Icicles before releasing two orchestral acoustic pop records as Lightspeed Champion. In 2011, he released Coastal Grooves, the first of four solo albums under the moniker Blood Orange. His 2016 album, Freetown Sound, was released to critical acclaim and saw Hynes defined as one of the foremost musical voices of his time, receiving comparisons to the likes of Kendrick Lamar and D'Angelo for his own searing and soothing personal document of life as a black man in America. His 2018 album, Negro Swan, was released to equally rapturous response, exploring elements of black depression and identity. His most recent release, the 2019 mixtape Angel's Pulse, which Hynes describes as an epilogue to Negro Swan, further explores and builds upon those thematic elements. He has collaborated with Solange Knowles, fka twigs, A$AP Rocky, Puff Daddy, Janet Mock, Mariah Carey, and many more, and was recently one of four artists invited to the Kennedy Center to perform alongside Philip Glass. In addition to his production work, he scored the film Palo Alto, directed by Gia Coppola.