Album: Jamie xx
On his first stand-alone album, Jamie Smith steps out of a world of endless monochrome into the sunlight. That may sound melodramatic, but the transformation of the artistic sensibilities of The xx’s in-house beat-master is truly startling. Where once all was gloom and introversion, here the tone is endlessly upbeat, with gospel, carnival music, and celebratory house grooves co-existing in sweet harmonium.
There are several guest turns — most memorably from The xx vocalists, Romy Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim. However, Smith’s is the dominant sensibility and he is at ease shuffling between genres, looking to the dance-floor on a briskly buoyant ‘Loud Places’, and deploying droning Krautrock on the careening ‘Gosh’ (a song that will sate the curiosity of anyone wondering what Neu! would sound like fronted by Keith from The Prodigy).
