At the age of 18, his bare-bones, atmospheric production style helped make the xx’s debut a generation-defining album, giving 00s morose teens their own Unknown Pleasures updated for the digital age. In Colour – his first and until now only solo outing – played a similar trick, this time mining more recent eras to create a kaleidoscopic, often overwhelming love letter to rave culture. Both albums have cast a vast shadow over the music that followed them – so it’s understandable that In Waves, arriving almost a decade after In Colour, comes burdened with a degree of expectation.
As the title suggests, In Waves isn’t a radical departure from its predecessor. The artwork – black and white where In Colour’s was a spectrum of different hues – might suggest that this is a more stripped-back affair, but if anything the opposite is true. The airhorn that opens the album sets the tone for another maximalist outing, drawing on UK funky, European techno, dubstep, dark house – even genres as distant from dance music as postminimalism get a look-in here.
Much of this album will already be familiar to fans of Jamie’s music, not only from the six singles that have already been released but from the multiple versions of tracks tested and refined through his DJ sets over the last few years. The album that’s taken shape from that process of trial-and-error can be neatly split into two halves, with its first seven tracks setting an upbeat tone that’s in keeping with much of Jamie’s previous work. “Waited All Night” fits snugly into this category, not least because it’s essentially an xx track, featuring both Romy and Oliver Sim on vocals. “Still Summer” also sounds like it could have been pulled straight from In Colour: its twanging synths and syncopated rhythms make it a spiritual sequel to “Sleep Sound”, which used similar ingredients to similar effect nine years ago. And then there’s “Baddy on the Floor”, In Waves’ answer to the shameless thrill of “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”. “Baddy” is so absurdly danceable that it’s a wonder no one’s yet proscribed it as a legal high: the collaboration with Honey Dijon has produced liquid magic, an irresistible meeting point between Italo house and UK garage.
There are smatterings of strangeness across the first side – most obviously on the trippy, breathy “Dafodil” – but it’s with “The Feeling I Get from You” that the album takes a turn for the darkly bizarre. Layering samples over a simple beat and a piano riff that sounds a lot like John Nyman’s soundtrack for The Piano, the track fashions a dialogue between two characters that’s pleasantly romantic in content, but which in context sounds nothing short of unsettling. “All You Children” takes this a step further, topping a high-tempo track with pitch-shifted samples of children’s voices and a creepy voiceover that sounds like an AI-generated cult leader: “All you children, gather round. We will dance together.”
That curious shift in tone makes In Waves a more enigmatic listen than In Colour, and perhaps goes some way to explaining the monochromaticism of its artwork. As an album, it’s hard to read – a quality which gives scope for deep dives and respins, but which also makes sincere connection a trickier ask at times. (“Falling Together” falls victim to this, closing off that weird second side with a Carl Sagan speech that may or may not be meant sincerely here.) As a demonstration of Jamie xx’s eclectic knowledge of (and passion for) British dance music, it’s as compelling and surprising as his live sets. And while it’s unlikely to have the same impact as In Colour, as the next step in the development of an eternally unpredictable artist, it’s a rewarding and frequently electrifying listen.
