Like the best bits of his 2011 album Coastal Grooves, it feeds on humble but compulsively listenable tunes that reference the silken grooves of late-80s pop. The EP shares DNA with Hynes' solo outlet Blood Orange. And True, a thematically consistent whole, sounds like the product of a lovingly forged artistic bond. His name is credited prominently and he appears hand-in-hand with Solange at listening parties and in press photos. But Solange upends that model by presenting Devonté Hynes, her co-songwriter and True’s main producer, as a full-fledged partner. Producers and songwriters in the pop world sometimes lurk in the background, leaving the vocalist to be the face of the project. True, the EP that follows, delivers on the fresh promise of "Losing You" and marks the sound of a singer hitting a graceful stride, in her own time and on her own terms. Released via Terrible, the label co-owned by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, the sly single hinted at the possibilities open to an artist who eschews a traditional model of pop stardom.
But this fall, she released "Losing You", a gleaming and spirited new song that transcended the labels she'd been assigned. Then she split with Interscope and resurfaced on the indie circuit, carting Jay-Z and her sister Beyoncé to Grizzly Bear concerts on the Williamsburg waterfront and offering up a cover of Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is the Move". At cynical first glance, it seemed like Knowles was simply backtracking and rebranding, hoping to claim some available indie turf. When we heard from Solange Knowles four years ago, she was a major-label signee trying to find her footing on a conceptual and vintage-sounding album called SoL-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams.
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