The Daily Spin II
Jamie xx | In Waves
Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.
As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.
Album: In Waves (2024)
Artist: Jamie xx
Link:
There’s no great way to follow up perfection, and yet that’s what Jamie Smith found himself tasked with in the creation of In Waves, his sophomore album under the solo moniker Jamie xx.
It’d be ludicrous to suggest that this is as good as In Colour, frankly. I love Waves, but Colour was transcendental in a way music rarely ever gets for me - there’s a reason it’s one of just five all-time 10s for me. I spoke to it in my review published two years ago - few albums so accurately pinpoint the ups and downs of life in sonic form the way I feel Colour manages to. From those first notes of ‘Gosh’ to the last lingering breaths of ‘Girl’, the entire record paints a picture of life - scoring it, adding color to it as the great artists of their time did.
Waves is simultaneously a continuation and a divergence. Once more, Smith finds himself a storyteller, but the scope is pared down. This, more than anything, feels like a love letter to house music - sample-heavy, chopped, and thick with the sort of riotous energy that keeps you moving no matter what. Given the state of things since 2020, it’s a logical jump to make, frankly - Smith has seen more than most the shifts in the world, and one of the great reuniters was and continues to be music. What better way to celebrate than to dedicate a creative project to it?
I’m not saying no one else has had this idea - surely, that’s been a main motivator for so many artists as they create - but I’m always blown away with Smith’s hit rate here. Whereas Colour was a little more experimental on the whole, tighter to the jungle and garage roots that formed the backbone of the modern British house movement, this feels like Jamie saying “I’m gonna give you an hour of my best crack at house I can give” - and god DAMN, this hits.
Of course, Smith teases the sentiments that made Colour such a smash hit - in creating his love letter, he touches on so much of what makes music a venue for love - ‘Life’, the joyous, brash shout-it-from-the-rooftops side of the coin, full of vibrancy that leaves you a breathless, grinning fool, immediately followed by ‘The Feeling I Get From You’, a steady heartbeat of a track - the quieter sort of love, one that finds itself in the (slightly) gentler moments, over that lovely little piano ditty and a simple beat that lets itself fill open space. Going back-to-back like that is an incredible touch, but it’s far from the only example of love on this record - just the two finest, if you ask me.
As always, it’s Smith’s sense of room that makes his sound so special - ‘Breather’ is lungs opening and contracting, the nervous, tight energy of a house crowd as the main act finally takes center stage, works the crowd into a frenzy. It’s that clench of your chest every time you do something big, the butterflies lingering in a group of people finding bridges of commonality across oft vast gaps - and then the drop hits, and a low drum with such steady thrum hits at you as the exaltation strikes.
I could talk for hours on every track on this record - and you’re lucky I didn’t look at the extended EP, which added four more - but the last one I want to touch on is ‘Falling Together’, the album’s closer. Featuring dancer Oona Doherty, it’s the pinnacle of what Waves aims to be - the euphoria, the sweat, the glory, the agony, the anxiety - all of it, wrapped into one incredibly danceable package. It’s that reminder that the problems in life can be left at the coat check for the night, and you can just let go.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Rating: 9/10
Best Tracks: Dafodil, Breather
Worst Tracks: Every Single Weekend