More time has passed since pandemic lockdown than actually elapsed during it, so another piece of quarantine-induced art feels – at best – late. Fortunately, a better word is “overdue” in reference to In Waves. Jamie xx’s first album in nearly a decade closes a journey that began when the world shut down and dedicates itself to a place that was, at the time, forbidden: the dancefloor.
No one’s saying that COVID arrived at the right time for Jamie xx, but unlike for those with health issues, weddings, graduations, etc. on the horizon… if it was going to happen, it might as well have been early 2020. Eleven years after his band The xx’s unexpectedly successful debut, he didn’t know who he wanted to be when he grew up. According to press materials, he found no appeal in becoming a celebrity DJ or producer-for-hire, and he couldn’t answer when he asked himself why he should make music. The muse had gone home early.
His first single in years, “Idontknow”, arrived in April 2020 and was followed promotionally by a Radio 1 “Essential Mix”; both are footnotes now, possibly to be revived in the distant future. Like In Waves, “Idontknow” had little to do with his 2015 masterpiece In Colour. It’s tribal and paranoid, timed perfectly for a world getting its pandemic feet wet. But it was creating the “Essential Mix” that caused a rethink. He had said in the past that the BBC series was his window into a world before he could enter clubs and, suddenly, here he was again.
Billed as a mystical night out, In Waves is more than that. It’s a love letter to clubbing and club music from the 1990s to the present. Jamie xx says part of the quest was to avoid “crass nostalgia”, but that doesn’t stop him from celebrating. Music has an almost unique ability to transform feeling nostalgic into an activity: a song can conjure memories of past good times and therefore create more, new cherished memories on top of those. In fact, moments when In Waves speaks most openly – like the nods to “One More Time” in “Baddy On The Floor” – are frequently its most electric. One man’s crass is another’s treasure.
Mischieviously, “Wanna” opens the album with a syrupy dose of romanticism. Soft piano chords play while we run our fingers along items in an old bedroom at our parents’ house. A compressed sample low in the mix provides the soundtrack to old photos, tracksuits still hung in the closet, and water-stained ticket stubs. You catch yourself in the mirror and oblige it with a quick two-step jig, before you lie back on the bed and fall into a reverie.
“Treat Each Other Right” starts the album proper as an “Everybody Dance Now” rave-up that also commences the theme of dancing as a cure-all, the answer to all problems. The album’s tendency toward New Age vibes occasionally snags momentum, but “Treat Each Other Right” strikes the right balance of sweat and positivity. Featuring xx bandmates Romy Croft and Oliver Sim, “Waited All Night” turns immediately inward as the focus shifts from dance as a form of communal behaviour to mental-health exercise. Dark and pulsating despite the “da da da” hook, Romy’s anxiety increases while she scans the floor for a decent partner. Sim grows into it like a disembodied Chris Martin, stalking the fringes until Jamie’s breakdown puts the spotlight on the DJ manipulating the scene.
With “Baddy On The Floor”, In Waves see-saws back to dancing as a social thing, calling on house, hip-hop, Daft Punk and Philadelphia International disco. Ironically, the album’s least-clubby side is its best: “Dafodil” is a sensual pill-drop, a Gorillaz-ish dub groove somewhere between a field in Hampshire and Motown that marries two versions of the same 70s love song: the original, Astrud Gilberto’s “Touching You”, and an alternate by JJ Barnes retitled “I Just Make Believe (I’m Touching You)”. If he’d discovered them independently, you could chalk it up to serendipity. (Versions of it appeared on the “Essential Mix”.) The crate-digging presence of mind to lock the two sides together is testament to Jamie xx’s extraordinary vision. Adding Kelsey Lu, Panda Bear, and John Glacier to the experiment almost feels like showing-off.
With “Still Summer”, we reach the tunnel-vision auto-pilot point of a long night out where self-consciousness and self-awareness diverge. It’s in some ways a mid-album guitar solo and a bit showy with the effects; regardless, it’s effectively tense and forever threatening (but never delivering) release. The ghost in this machine recalls the eerie howling in Moody Blues’ “Nights In White Satin”, newly syncopated and glitchy.
Robyn’s cameo on “Life” closes the heart of the album on another Daft Punk/Nile Rodgers high, like a victory-lap medley from two monsters of the club game. At this point, the “Essential Mix” swings back into view. His set started to freak-out around the 70-minute mark and, though that isn’t technically the case here, In Waves’ narrative becomes choppy even if the music remains excellent. “The Feeling I Get From You” takes an endearing conversation between an older couple and splices it into cheeky porno bytes, while “Breather” draws closest to the insular portions of In Colour.
The end of In Waves is bound to divide listeners who will cotton to the connection between dancing and the simple joys children experience, and those who will (especially on the second listen) tire of the rote positivity, like a yoga instructor whose constant instructions to breathe are detracting from the breathing. Regardless, as pieces of a whole they fit the restorative nature of In Waves. Jaime xx needed an answer “why” and the response was “yes”.
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