Jamie xx – In Waves review

No audience for a kind of music was impacted by the pandemic more than those who spent their time clubbing. When the essence of why you do what you is connection and a shared purpose, being stuck in your room for months on end unable to do anything other than peer at your phone offered little comfort.

Eventually though with enough motivation people found a way. Whilst DJ’s and producers streaming sets was one way to relieve the need, across the country – to predictable moral outrage and in some cases huge fines – illegal parties became another. Jamie Smith spent lockdown with his parents record collection and the lurking spectre of following up 2015’s In Colour, having already scrapped an album’s worth of material he decided was ‘Boring’.

These raves helped rekindle for him the essence of why he created in the first place, and In Waves is a joyous distillation of the need for euphoria and hedonism. At it’s best when heavyweight collaborators Robyn, The Avalanches, Animal Collective‘s Panda Bear and xx friends Romy Madley and Oliver Sim bring themselves, Treat Each Other Right, All You Children and Dafodil are heavenly perfection for a crowd which has it’s mojo back.

You can read a full review here.