Following 2018’s JUNO-nominated Blood, Rhye’s new release Home is centered around the idea of home as the core of creativity and community. It’s familiar in its synthesis of propulsive beats, orchestral flourishes, piano ruminations and sultry, gender-nonconforming vocals, but never have they sounded more cohesive or alive. Written throughout 2019 and early 2020, Home was recorded at United Recording Studios, Revival at The Complex (Earth, Wind, & Fire), as well as Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based musician Michael Milosh’s home studio, and mixed by Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, Interpol, My Bloody Valentine).

Every element of Home is intentional and meant to reverberate on a higher extra-sensory plane. This attention to detail is prominent throughout the new single, “Black Rain.” Previous single, “Helpless,” relays love in its most intimate and romantic form over slinky R&B pulses, while “My Heart Bleeds,” the last song written for the album, speaks to the collective pain of 2020, insisting “we’re not enemies” and “we’ve got to feel some change” over ruminative, gentle disco and open-hearted singing. The album is bookended by celestial cantos sung by the Danish National Girls’ Choir, who Rhye performed with at a landmark concert in Denmark in 2017. The choir flew to LA to record with him for one day. It’s reflective of Milosh’s own experiences singing in choir as a boy, his entry point to the path that has informed his distinctive vocals.