Nelly Furtado may have found her new Timbaland: this weekend, she and Blood Orange performed at the Apollo, where they also released an exclusive cassette, Hadron Collider. The performance and release were part of Blood Orange’s “And Friends” shows at the legendary venue, which also featured Solange, Le1f, Ratking, and Junglepussy.
The pairing of Blood Orange and Furtado at first seems strange, but Dev Hynes has quickly become one of the indie scene’s standout producers, so it’s not surprising that Furtado might want to align herself with one of music’s most important producers. And “important” is the right word, because even though Hynes’ obvious talent is in his ability to smash disparate genres together into coherent masterpieces (as seen on 2013’s Cupid Deluxe), he’s also emerged as one of music’s greatest thinkers and most vocal activists, especially since an incident at Lollapalooza that involved Hynes being accosted by security after making a statement criticizing police brutality.
As far as the performance with Solange, clearly the two have cleared the air since 2013, when Hynes and Solange had a bit of falling out after Solange was reportedly talking behind Hynes’ back concerning the production of Solange’s excellent 2012 EP True. They performed that album’s “Losing You,” which you can watch a bit of here.
For more video of the show, including some of Le1f, Ratking, and Junglepussy, head on over to Pitchfork . No word yet on the material found on the collaborative cassette. All proceeds from the show went to Opus 118 Harlem School of Music.