Jamie xx - In Waves

That it has been nearly a decade since solo debut ‘In Colour’ falsely suggests Jamie xx hasn’t kept himself busy. Most recently, of course, he helped out on both xx bandmates’ own work, Oliver Sim’s ‘Hideous Bastard’ released in 2022, and last year’s ‘Mid Air’ from Romy. And while, on Jamie’s own second full-length ‘In Waves’, it could be ‘Waited All Night’ that takes centre stage – featuring both bandmates, taking their vocals and chopping them up, cut-and-paste style, to create a strangely disconcerting mood that’s familiar in its sounds yet not in its arrangement – it’s actually Robyn’s turn that’s the cherry on the top of Jamie’s late-night cake. Where most of the record – ostensibly designed as chronicling a night out – meanders through skittish beats, soothing piano licks and the kind of scattershot sampling that can only in reality have been meticulously plotted, ‘Life’ provides a pure pop moment of the most joyous kind. Enlisting the Swedish icon to soundtrack a moment of dancefloor euphoria is in itself a masterstroke, but the track’s looped hook possesses the kind of earwormy immediacy that brings to mind Y2K staples ‘Lady (Hear Me Tonight)’ from French duo Modjo and Spiller’s Sophie Ellis-Bextor featuring ‘Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)’. Notable, too, is the appearance of The Avalanches on ‘All You Children’, a similar – if less in-your-face – pop moment, a meeting of dancefloor collage-making minds of sorts.