Blood Orange treads the same scattered, misty, non-linear paths as To Pimp A Butterfly-era Kendrick Lamar or latter-day D’Angelo on Negro Swan. Tracks lean and dart at weird angles. Sometimes it feels vexing and distant and you wish the focus narrowed. But most of the time, it’s beautiful kaleidoscopic chaos. It’s an album that feels refreshingly ambitious and unrestrained.

Dev Hynes is the uber-talented man behind Blood Orange. He’s had a long history in music for a 32 year-old, having written for countless other artists including Carly Rae Jepsen, Tinashe and A$AP Rocky and releasing three previous albums under the BO moniker (not to mention his previous work with Lightspeed Champion and Test Icles). Negro Swan takes elements of all those endeavours – contemplative writing, soulful vocals, and alternative production. But more than anything, the album feels like entering a time warp back to 1980s R&B. Prince would have loved this one.

Above all, Hynes does an excellent job keeping these songs shapeless. That might sound like an unremarkable feat, but it’s a skill that Frank Ocean’s turned into a career. But Negro Swan stays cohesive –Hynes never takes the music down unusual corridors merely for the sake of it. He’s simply using his whole arsenal here – angelic singing melded with R&B/soul/jazz production. It’s not surprising to find out that Hynes produced the entire album; he sounds in complete control behind the boards and the mic.

That approach means that Negro Swan is littered with bright, synchronised moments where an inspired spark of beatmaking meets grandiose singing. “Take Your Time” is one of the less thematically-ambitious songs on this album, but it features an unforgettable beat-switch half-way through, as a delicate keyboard floats and a flute begins playing while Hynes whispers compassionately (“what do I know so faaaaar”). “Jewelry” follows on this feeling, adopting the same blaring synths while Hynes does a great 80s R&B star impression and even breaks into straight-up rapping at one point.

These moments of genuine beauty aren’t few are far between either, tracks like “Charcoal Baby”, “Dagenham Dream”, “Nappy Wonder’ and “Runnin’” are all standouts on the album. The key is often Hynes’ acute sense of how to use cacophonous synthesisers like organs (in the same way dream-pop artists Beach House have mastered) and the way he leans heavy into his singing – these tricks give the tracks a sense of wild ambition and untamed spirit.

It’s refreshing to listen to an album that doesn’t feel as if it is simply a jumble of good songs by an artist. Negro Swan feels more like a bunch of ideas than simply music for music’s sake, and as a result there’s a natural free-flow to the album that’s impossible to manufacture. The aforementioned tracks are highlights because they feel slightly more focused than others, and the refrains within them linger around in your mind – think Hynes’ singing on “Nappy Wonder” (“feelings never have no ethics/feelings never have been ethical”). But even the less memorable songs contribute to the album’s retro movement. “Hope” is more of a 90s R&B track, it’s a less ambitious offering and features a slightly goofy Puff Daddy interlude, but it’s saved by a lovely contribution by Tei Shi. Likewise “Chewing Gum”, which is Hynes’ idea of a hip-hop track but doesn’t really stick despite help from A$AP Rocky.

There is one important aspect that will divide listeners somewhat though. Hynes is a cryptic writer, and Negro Swan is ultimately – as you can tell in some lyrics and particularly in the visuals that accompanied this album – an album celebrating black individuality. If you listen hard enough, you can make out some of these connections. But Hynes is an extremely guarded songwriter – some lyrics could be alluding to almost anything and other times it’s near-impossible to make out what he’s singing. Hynes told reviewers that “Vulture Baby” is a critique on white artists who take advantage of hip-hop/rap culture, but you’d be hard-pressed to be able to tell from his muffled crooning on the track. Janet Mock records multiple spoken-word intros at different points, but her words and the emotions drawn out on the tracks don’t always feel like they align.

Others will probably find these connections easier to link and there can obviously be worth in ambiguous writing, but it sometimes feels needlessly unfocused to the point of confusion. Frank Ocean can be a enigmatic lyricist, but he’s become a master at narrowing his focus when needed with a snappy, personal line that feels immediately relatable. Negro Swan lacks those moments of jolting clarity. It’s an album that feels like it still has half a foot inside Hynes’ mind, as if only he could understand the lyrics’ real worth at times. He might do well to engage in more rapping, because his verse on “Jewelry” is a welcome moment of air-clearing lucidity (and he has a great English rapping cadence).

But that’s also ultimately what makes this album so memorable. It’s messy, tangential and puzzling, but it’s clearly the work of an artist with such an individual perspective. The production on the record is some of the best you will hear this year – sounding like 80s R&B revamped for the more-depressing 2010s. When Hynes chants a particular sticky phrase over those roaring synths, like on “Dagenham Dream”, he sounds nothing else in music at the moment.

Those moments of brilliance culminate in a gorgeous second-half to the closer “Smoke”. Hynes drops all of the production sans a plucky acoustic guitar, while he repeatedly chants the mantra the sun…comes in…my heart… fulfils… within.  It’s a rare instant on Negro Swan where you feel completely in tune with the artist. Those feelings of rebirth and revival that he draws upon are relatable to anyone. It ends an impressive album on a profound, vivid footnote, and you instantly forget any earlier flashes when you might have felt he could’ve been clearer.

8.2