For the first time in seven years, Dev Hynes has returned to his Blood Orange project for a full length release, dropping Essex Honey on RCA Records.

Debuting the project in June with a single – "The Field" featuring The Durutti Column, Tariq Al-Sabir, Caroline Polachek, and Daniel Caesar – the album features more than a dozen external collaborators, from Turnstile's Brendan Yates, to The Replacments' Paul Westerberg, and even novelist Zadie Smith.

Discussing the collaborative process of the album with Juana Summers of NPR, Hynes noted that the process of working with others is what makes music so exciting, as it allows the best ideas to rise to the top.

"It's the conversation. I just love conversation (laughter), and I love talking to friends. I'm trying to just, in my own view, make the best things that I can do," Hynes told NPR. "And what that then allows is the door to be completely open because this combination of wanting to see what I can do but also wanting to make something that is the best in my own eyes means that I can open the door to friends. And if they have an idea, and in my eyes it is a better idea, then incredible (laughter). We're like - we're - you know, we're getting somewhere."

Touching specifically on his collaboration with Polachek on "Mind Loaded", Hynes celebrated the "Welcome To My Island" singer for the ideas she brought to the song, creating a countermelody that really added to the composition.

"Caroline added on - there's a song called 'Mind Loaded.' And the vocal she added really - I mean, that song had existed for me for quite a long time, and I'd been working on it on and off," Hynes noted. "And then towards the end of the process she added this, like, really incredible almost, like, countermelody over the - I mean, I guess they're verses. I don't even know. But she added something over them, and it was so next level, something I could never have ever thought of, but something that only Caroline could ever have thought of."

Polachek is a frequent collaborator of Hynes dating all the way back to Cupid Deluxe, where she appeared on "Chamakay" and "Chosen" before sharing a production credit on Solange's "Out Music" in 2017. With two more collaborations over Essex Honey's 14 song track list, it's clear that partnership has grown tighter.