Electronic music is often considered a genre that moves at the speed of light, but it’s nine years since Jamie Smith peeled away from his day job as one-third of art-pop trio The xx with his solo debut, In Colour. In the near-decade since, the artist otherwise known as Jamie xx has sustained a career as an in-demand producer, DJ and remixer – applying his magic touch to releases by Dua Lipa, Halsey and others.
Yet a lucrative stretch as a big league knob-twiddler has, by all accounts, left him unfulfilled. During the pandemic, the Londoner embarked on a grand reset – a reboot that has yielded his second studio album, In Waves. Amid the stillness of lockdown, Smith rediscovered his passion for the dance floor, and at full tilt, In Waves is a joyous eulogy to an epic night out. But there are other moments when the producer, now 35, struggles to meaningfully progress his sound beyond the sample-heavy bliss of the Grammy and Mercury-nominated In Colour. The result is a project that too often feels like an extension of his debut rather than a new beginning.
With the exception of “Life” – a listless collaboration with Swedish pop icon Robyn, which suffers from a striking lack of chemistry between producer and vocalist – In Waves functions best when the introverted Smith throws open the doors. There’s an impromptu reunion of The xx on the fantastic “Waited All Night”, where the midnight-black ennui of vocalists Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft is paired with modular synth and super-sized blasts of disco escapism. The guestlist expands further on “Dafodil” as London rapper John Glacier – backed by Californian cellist and singer Kelsey Lu and Animal Collective’s Panda Bear – lays her chilly rhymes over stuttering dubstep.
It’s when Smith is left to noodle on his own that In Waves treads water. Built around a gospel sample of Almeta Lattimore’s “Oh My Love” from 1975, “Treat Each Other Right” feels like a late entry in the dinner party blues genre as first championed 25 years ago by Moby.
Still, for every low, there is a pulse-quickening high. In Waves vaults across the finish line with cloud-scraping closer “Falling Together”, on which Belfast choreographer Oona Doherty delivers a spoken-word rumination on the meaning of the universe as Smith unleashes an onslaught of ’90s trance grooves. It’s a wonderful full stop to a record that swings from inspired to insipid and all the way back around again.
Stream: ‘Waited All Night’, ‘Falling Together’