Label: Young
Released: 8th September 2023
Dance music, in its purest form, is deeply physical music. By its very nature, it’s music that compels you to move, but, perhaps more importantly, it also compels you to feel. On Romy’s debut solo album ‘Mid Air’, the voice of The xx provides a masterclass in emotional dance music with all the feelings ramped up to a transcendent level.
Romy has always had one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic voices in UK music, and here it works perfectly against the beats and rhythms that Romy has constructed alongside producers, including dance music royalty Stuart Price and man of the moment Fred Again… What really makes this a special work, though, is the purity through which Romy distills some deeply personal and emotionally resonant songs with sharp, crystalline clarity. The shimmering epic ‘Weightless’ is a beautifully measured evocation of desire and how it feels to just lose yourself to the feeling, while the celebratory single ‘Enjoy Your Life’ is a mission statement for the whole project.
‘Did I’ is a trancy epic, while a song like ‘The Sea’ mixes that classic xx guitar sound with an overt club approach that highlights both the perfectly crafted songwriting at work along with the blissful levity of the club sounds. When they both come together on the yearning closer ‘She’s On My Mind’, it encapsulates all the joy, sadness and ecstasy that is wrapped up in falling in love, navigating what that means and finding your own personal salvation. This stunning record is a declaration of who Romy is as an artist and as a person.
