Champagne Coast successfully evokes the 80s drag ball culture of Jennie Livingston’s New York documentary Paris is Burning; a lifestyle which inspired the making of Blood Orange’s debut album Coastal Grooves. This scene is seemingly a million miles away from Dev Hyne’s upbringing in Essex, and the musical offerings of his former projects Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion.
The best bits of Coastal Grooves are captured on this stripped down, dreamy single where Hyne’s employs a velvety Prince-esque falsetto that allows the longings of a painful femininity to coax us into a warm, drunken stupor. Hyne’s lonely urgings “Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom” guide us on a journey through the troubled New York landscape.
[rating:4]
