It’s been almost 10 years since we last heard at length from Jamie xx. 2015’s In Colour took the moody brand of minimalism his band the xx had perfected for a spin on the dancefloor. Since then, he’s scattered a few under-the-radar bits of production work for high-profile artists like Frank Ocean, Miley Cyrus, and Tyler, the Creator, as well as his bandmates’ solo records. In Colour peaked with the Romy feature “Loud Places,” in which she delineates the different reasons people have to go out: to find a lover to go home with, to find a reason to never go home again. And his co-production of Romy’s own “Enjoy Your Life” was a highlight of her 2023 debut, an instant anthem about letting go of the reasons why and embracing pleasure. The writer and nightlife scholar McKenzie Wark opens her classic book Raving with a statement of purpose. “First thing I look for at raves: who needs it.” Tracks like these offered a defense of this need and a depiction of it. They felt, they feel, essential.
The pleasure of the dancefloor also animates his album-length return. In Waves generally plays to his strengths. These include simplicity: “Still Summer” is essentially a filtered trance chord progression, a kickdrum, and some screams; “The Feeling I Get From You” sets a collaged profession of love above some piano bar tinklings and an electro-y beat. Both are class acts. He also has a top-drawer guestlist, both sampled and in-person. His collab with the Avalanches brings the legendary poet Nikki Giovanni to the party via lifted stanzas of her Black Arts Movement “Dance Poem,” and if, like me, you might not necessarily have been the target audience for her 1976 calling-in of revolutionary children, the track’s psychedelic pop groove is welcoming nonetheless. “Baddy on the Floor” brings in the iconic Honey Dijon for a gospel-house stormer, easily the most vital track of the bunch. And “Life” lets Robyn, that disco bard of mixed emotions, rip. “Let’s fuck it up tonight,” she commands over French-touched house, and who would say no? Music sounds better with her.
Even at its strangest—the poesy comedown of closer “Falling Together” or the electroclash freakout of “Dafodil,” in which Kelsey Lu, John Glacier, Panda Bear, and also A$AP Rocky get lost on a hot summer night—Waves is bigger than In Colour, in the spectacle of its sound and in the scope of possible audience. This is music that can be effortlessly slotted into mainstream house sets and diced into TikTok challenges, selected as soundtracks for your vacation Insta carousels and added to “memories of 2024” playlists. Nothing succeeds in dance music like dance music about dancing, and on that front, In Waves is the big time.
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