Jamie xx - In Waves

Remarkably it’s now been nine years since Jamie xx’s debut solo album ‘In Colour’, a record that found the producer and DJ with the pop world at his feet with the rest of the decade seemingly mapped out for success on an unmatched level for a British electronic producer. Life doesn’t quite work out how you think it should, though, and the intervening years have seen Jamie reconfigure who he is as an artist and how he can channel the transcendent power of electronic music in ever more physical and revelatory ways. The result is ‘In Waves’ a collection of rousing bliss and invigorating energy full of variety and vivid dynamism.

Honed through extensive DJ sets post-pandemic, the record is imbued with a celebratory quality like on party anthem ‘Baddy On The Floor’ while tracks like the beatific and languid groove of ‘Daffodil’ feat Kelsey Lu, John Glacier and Panda Bear represent the playful side of Jamie’s work with his immaculate choice of samples and juxtapositions of sound.

‘In Waves’ perfectly captures the twin vibes of gauzy nostalgia for the classic sounds he employs mixed with the freshness of a dance music landscape where anything goes. There remains no one better in 2024 than Jamie xx to satisfy hedonistic pure pleasure and ecstatic reverie.