It’s still very important to me that albums feel like albums, especially in this time of streaming and stuff. I always put that one in the middle of all my tracklists when I was trying to work it out. And then I played the album to Kieran Hebden, Four Tet. He told me, basically, to flip it all around — what is the first half used to be the second half. That was a great piece of advice. That was a big part of the puzzle in how to make the album work.
Source: The Story Behind Every Song On Jamie xx’s New Album In Waves by Margaret Farrell
Al Newstead explains the contrast to In Colour:
Whereas the sleeve of In Colour bursts with primary colours, In Waves is emblazoned with a black and white optical illusion, signalling a darker, less vivacious affair. But while the contents are indeed more complicated, they’re no less sumptuous.
Source: Jamie xx — In Waves by Al Newstead
In a review for Pitchfork, Jesse Dorris highlights the references to yesteryear with some of the tracks. I wonder if this is what attracts me to the album, the certain comfort of the familiar. In addition to references to 90’s house, I was reminded of the vocal chops of Telefon Tel Aviv’s ‘My Week Beats Your Year’.
Dorris wonders though, with all its spectacle, In Waves lacks the love and emotion of In Colour.
Waves is bigger than In Colour, in the spectacle of its sound and in the scope of possible audience. This is music that can be effortlessly slotted into mainstream house sets and diced into TikTok challenges, selected as soundtracks for your vacation Insta carousels and added to “memories of 2024” playlists. Nothing succeeds in dance music like dance music about dancing, and on that front, In Waves is the big time.
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Dance music about dancing works when it inspires movement; dance music about love only works when you can’t help but sink in. Remember when the Idris Muhammad sample swells like a first, best kiss, in Romy’s “Loud Places”? You’ll never forget it, unlike a fair bit of In Waves, which is tasteful and slick, approachable and antiperspirant, less oceanic ecstasy than the pool party of the year.
Source: Jamie xx: In Waves by Jesse Dorris
It was interesting to contrast this with Jamie xx’s reflection upon the challenge of emotion in his music and the importance of finding balance.
The instrumental songs really allow the album to breathe. Were you very conscious about having those spaces throughout?
JAMIE XX: Yeah, definitely. In terms of as a listen as well, I was aware that I didn’t want it to feel too busy. But I wanted to keep the way it sounded because that was what was coming out of me naturally. And I felt like it was a bit of an anti- all of the sort of really popular dance music that’s in the world at the time, which is very spacious. Some of it is not as emotional as it intends to be. It feels a bit forced. There’s only so much of it that sort of busy stuff that I could put on the album that would work where it could still be listenable. It was very much a balancing act.
Source: The Story Behind Every Song On Jamie xx’s New Album In Waves by Margaret Farrell
The Sterogum interview also provides some other insights into the album, such as the hundreds of vocals that were not used in ‘Dafodil’. I am always intrigued by all of the “shit” that left on the chopping board when create any sort of art.
I asked people to do verses based on their memories from a summer in London. I’ve got a lot of versions of this song, and there could be like a 20-minute version somewhere down the line.
Source: The Story Behind Every Song On Jamie xx’s New Album In Waves by Margaret Farrell
I especially wondered about what was left out listening to Charli XCX’s Brat and whether the strength of an album is sometimes what is removed and left out.
Associated with what is ‘left out’, one of the things that intrigues me about the creative process is the way in which you end up with a final product, without any idea of the journey followed to get it to that stage. In particular, the serendipity, where choices are based on feel, rather than a particular technical choice as to what chord is right. This is something that Jon Hopkins has spoken about with regard to making something to break, while Kieren Hebden talks about chance. In Jamie xx’s case it is about making mistakes:
You’ve mentioned a couple times this process of making mistakes. I would love to hear more about what you mean by mistake?
JAMIE XX: It can be anything from hitting a bunch of notes on a synth that suddenly make you feel a certain way. Or, experimenting using software in a way that I’ve never used it before or it wasn’t intended to be used that makes something sonically catch your ear, but also has a certain feeling attached to it. The other chords in “Still Summer,” that are in the first break, that was another thing where I really liked the chords but when I made them it sounded like a very done thing — some nice synthy chords come in at a breakdown in a dance song. Then, I bounced them out and time-stretched them all and messed with them in a way that I would not normally mess with an already nice sounding set of synth chords. It ended up sounding more like a strummed guitar, I think, or something that you can’t quite put your finger on. I just love that. It made it a lot more organic. But all of this was done without knowing what it would end up sounding like.
Source: The Story Behind Every Song On Jamie xx’s New Album In Waves by Margaret Farrell
Jamie xx also discusses some of the more technical elements which is always insightful:
there’s like static running through it, right? I feel like it almost feels like you’re trying to make it seem kind of like a memory.
JAMIE XX: I like that. It’s actually technically a way of making the synths sound like that, where you have to play white noise essentially through a vocoder triggering a synth. But it makes that strange sound. I like that. I’ve never thought of it like that.
Source: The Story Behind Every Song On Jamie xx’s New Album In Waves by Margaret Farrell
