At long last, Jamie Smith has officially arrived.
It really feels the full six years since Smith and his two xx bandmates, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, were the three quiet teenagers from London who became one of the biggest indie it-bands since The Strokes thanks to their timeless, Mercury Award-winning debut album, xx. But a lot has changed since 2009, and these days The xx’s shy MPC drummer is arguably more known for his solo output as Jamie xx.
While his band have laid low since 2012’s Coexist, Smith has kept himself busy in the interim. Between collaborating with the late Gil Scott-Heron on 2011’s We’re New Here, getting sampled by Drake and Rihanna for their #1 hit ‘Take Care’, and playing all the major festivals across the globe as Jamie xx, Smith has steadily earned a reputation as one of dance music’s most exciting and respected producers. His debut album, In Colour, also just might be 2015’s most anticipated dance release. Good thing it doesn’t disappoint.
The 26-year-old’s long-gestating LP is a brilliantly executed ode to London’s dance culture. Throbbing with the pulse of his hometown, it leaves you with a distinct imprint of Smith’s DNA as a solo producer by the end of its sonically diverse, yet remarkably consistent 11 tracks, which span across a vivid spectrum of styles including garage, jungle, breakbeat, soul and hip hop.
Patiently crafted over the course of four years, the record pays homage to the range of influences that have shaped him. From his parents’ 70’s soul records he listened to as a child, to his early experiences as a bug-eyed punter at London super club Plastic People, right through to his career with The xx, you can hear how fondly Jamie has etched each of these formative passages of time into his first full-length work. Because it’s so heavily rooted in the past – to the UK’s rich rave history, in particular – In Colour glows spectacularly with a sense of warm, sepia-toned nostalgia.
“It’s always been easy to describe Jamie xx as a dancier version of The xx, but there’s far more to it than that.”In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Smith spoke about his interest in exploring bittersweet sounds to make dance music that also get you thinking about the bigger stuff. “You can make it sound quite melancholy,” he said about his trademark steel pans. “But at the same time, it reminds me of paradise.” The London native is a master at hitting those sweet spots in the middle of joy and sadness, ecstasy and comedown, in a masterfully subtle way. An introvert by nature, Smith’s idea of the perfect club banger is the kind that stirs you physically and emotionally – encouraging both serotonin release and poignant introspection.
If that’s his aim, he achieves it right off the bat with In Colour‘s stunning opener, ‘Gosh’. It starts as a simple, bread-and-butter breakbeat loop, until a surge of deep bass signals the arrival of a faint, siren-like keyboard line that begins to creep in over the horizon. It suddenly swoops down to the front of the mix, and then pierces up towards to the sky again, soaring higher and higher until it reaches a point of utter euphoria. Its proportions are so grand that Young Turks had to fork out on a big budget space video just to try do it justice.
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Elsewhere, ‘Obvs’ is immediately reminiscent of his first single ‘Far Nearer’, bursting with those signature happy-sad steel pans played on an off-kilter tempo, and ‘Loud Places’ lifts Croft’s forlorn verses with a warm and fuzzy Idris Muhammad sample to become an uplifting, confetti-from-the-sky kind of sing-along.
‘The Rest Is Noise’ feels like the crown jewel centrepiece: a moving three-part epic that drifts in with dreamy atmospherics, breaks down with heart-wrenching piano keys, before giving way to a thumping bass assault. It builds to a dazzling blur of swirling synths and drum kicks, and then fades, ending with a field recording of what sounds like someone stepping over empties as they leave a house party in the harsh morning sunlight. It’s that all too real moment of bliss before you’re suddenly in the back of an Uber and you’ve got work in less than 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the biggest surprise comes in ‘I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)’. It’s the furthest diversion from the traditional Jamie xx sound, and it’s also the funnest cut on offer. A contender for 2015’s song of the summer, it’s built on a sample of 70’s soul group The Percusions’ (there’s that childhood influence peeking through), and sees Jamaican dancehall MC Popcaan sharing bars and with frenetic Atlanta rapper Young Thug. It’s a big mesh of ideas that maybe shouldn’t work, but do, and it merely reinforces the notion that Smith is at his best when he’s taking risks.
As a solo artist, his own sound flourishes greatest when he forces himself to push away from his own conventions. So ‘SeeSaw’ and ‘Stranger In A Room’, which feature guests vocals from Croft and Sim, respectively, sound like they might have fit better on The xx’s forthcoming third album, rumoured to be coming out sometime later this year. Here they’re a bit too familiar, but that’s mostly because they’re sitting next to some of Smith’s most challenging and ultimately enjoyable production to date.
“I’ve learned a lot. Mostly that I like working on my own,” Smith told the Guardian this week. You can hear that sentiment on here, too. In Colour is a marvellous debut with a strong sense of identity found in all of its hues, from light to dark, and every nuanced shade in between.
Jamie xx’s debut album In Colour is out now through Young Turks/ Remote Control.
