In London, New York and Los Angeles this past spring and summer, Jamie xx played 20 shows in a club of his own making, The Floor. Happening in warehouse spaces in each city, the nights featured a rotating cast of friends and fellow producers playing on lineups that each also included the U.K. producer, altogether bringing to life the nightclub of his dreams he’d long envisioned. The shows went late, with Jamie typically playing well after midnight, even in the middle of the week. Every show sold out.
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After it was all wrapped, the producer then traveled to the woods of Norway, where he posted up on a mountain four hours from the closest city. He had no phone signal, and every night for dinner, he ate the fish he’d caught earlier that day.
It’s the type of urban/rural balance the London-born artist has carved out over the last nine years, since the release of his last album, In Colour. Jamie’s second studio album, the project reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200, becoming an essential of the era. Making it after a period of heavy touring with his band, The xx, when he was longing for home, he calls the project “sort of my fantasy version of U.K. dance music history.”
Nine years later, the producer, now 35, is more focused on the present. Now living between his homes in London and Los Angeles, he’s today (Sept. 20) released In Colour‘s long-awaited followup, In Waves. Out on his own label, Young, he calls the project “a lot more current and about now,” with the 12-track project toggling between dreamy, cerebral IDM and equally smart but also joyful, extremely danceable tracks like the previously released singles “Baddy on the Floor” and “Life,” which features vocals from Robyn. The album also features his bandmates from The xx, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, whom Jamie has recently been in the studio with.
Speaking to Billboard from London the week before the release of In Waves, the artist, born James Thomas Smith, is days away from going on tour behind the album, with the run including standalone shows in Europe, the U.S., Brazil and beyond, along with festival sets at San Francisco’s Portola, Las Vegas’ A Big Beautiful Block Party, FORM Arcosanti in Arizona and Miami’s III Points.
However, release day will be the last time he’ll listen to the album he’s spent the last nine years making in its album form. Here, he explains why.
In Colour is obviously considered a masterpiece of the era. Did you feel pressure in making its follow up?
Yes, there was a period of time after I finished touring for I See You, the third xx album, there was a period of time where I was so sure that I was going to come home off tour, and I had this whole plan of what I was going to do to make my second solo record. I did exactly what I thought I should do, then the music just didn’t turn out to be — I think basically I had too much of a plan, and it was rigid. It seems to take me just having fun and not really thinking about the end game to be able to make music.
Did you ultimately use any of the music you were making in that more rigid plan?
No. I mean, it exists, but I don’t think it’s worth hearing. When I really started getting into the album, the pressure of In Colour seemed to disappear, and I was just enjoying making it. The only thing I was aware of was trying to be as un-nostalgic as I could be. I mean, I’m quite nostalgic in nature, but I wanted this album to feel a lot more current and about now, or maybe about the future, rather than looking to the past.
Going from In Colour to In Waves, it sounds like you’re in the same narrative. Does that feel fair? And if so, where are you now that you weren’t in 2015 and how has the story progressed?
Well, when I was making Colour, I was on tour, and had been for seven or eight years nonstop. I was really homesick, and I was dreaming up ideas about the U.K. and music in the U.K. and the dance scene there and everything that has happened since the ’80s in dance music in the U.K., which is a lot. It was sort of my fantasy version of U.K. dance music history. Because I was missing home, it made me feel more like I was at home, I guess.
This time, I bought a place in L.A., I live between London and L.A., and I’ve really grown into being transient, and I enjoy being all over the place. I feel very lucky that I get to do that and explore the different scenes. I don’t really miss home so much anymore. So this one is more about just enjoying where I’m at currently.
How have you made being transient more palatable and sustainable for you?
I think it’s more of a change in mindset than anything else. I also feel like maybe London has changed, that the scene was so vibrant when I was a teenager to like 25 [years old] in London and dance music was kind of London/U.K. centric, so it was all coming from where I grew up. I didn’t want to miss out on any of that. Whereas now, scenes that pop up are so global instantly because of how music is shared and how everybody is everywhere at once on social media and the internet, that it doesn’t feel like I need to be in one particular place.
That said, are there cities that feel particularly exciting or fresh to you right now?
It’s a good question. There are places that are always amazing and always have been like Berlin. L.A. played a big part in making me a happier, calmer person in my brain. I spent some of the pandemic there when we were allowed to fly. But L.A. was still in lockdown, so nothing was open, and I was just going surfing every day, then coming back to the house and making music. It’s some of the best memories in my life. I still try to get back to that headspace, then I eventually bought a house in L.A. because of how much I enjoyed it. It’s a very different way of life to London, and it’s been very helpful.
L.A. can be so hectic and so dense, but it sounds like you found a certain amount of serenity here.
Yeah, definitely. It can definitely be hectic, but I love that you can just escape up into the hills or to the beach, and suddenly you’re in wild nature.
It sounds like having fun and enjoying yourself was a driving force in the creation process of this album, which is very fun and danceable and celebratory, and also thematically deep. I’m thinking about tracks like “Breather” and like some of Robyn’s lyrics. On that side of it, what experiences and ideas were you drawing from?
I’ve been very reflective since I turned 30, which I think happens, has happened, to a lot of our generation. With that comes a lot more peace of mind, but also it gets really exhausting and boring, and you also want to be able to have fun in a more sustainable way. It was about finding balance between all those things. I guess with some of the spoken word and the themes on the album, it was both poking fun at that and also wanting it to be meaningful, depending on your mindset when you’re listening to it.
Where is it poking fun?
For example, the vocal on “Breather” was taken from me doing a YouTube yoga tutorial every day during lockdown. The woman who spoke on my yoga video is the person I ended up sampling like that, to either refer to your state of mind, and or taking drugs on a dance floor.
Obviously you’ve been very active in the nine years since In Colour, and also the dance world moves so quickly. I wonder if you ever felt like things were passing you by and thought about how you were going to reinsert yourself when it was time. Was there any doubt in that way?
Yeah. I mean, I still feel like that now. But at least I remind myself that I can get to places where I don’t feel like that. I just went to Norway on holiday for a week, like four hours out of a city, up a mountain to this lake where there was no roads and no phone signal. I had the best time ever. I had to fish for my dinner every night. It was a very unique experience. I kind of got back to that mindset that I’ve been so searching for over these years, of just calmness, really. Just knowing that that’s there is super helpful.
It sounds like nature is a big piece of it for you, in re-centering yourself.
Yeah, it has become that. I never expected that because I grew up in the city, and I always said that I would never want to live in a countryside. I was never really bothered by it, but I think things have changed.
It’s an interesting contrast to a crowded dance floor, which is typically a very metropolitan concept. Coming out of The Floor in London, New York and Los Angeles, did those runs turn out how you envisioned? And what did you take from the experiences?
It all turned out way better than I envisioned. But, I mean, I was quite naive going into The Floor nights, because for so long I dreamed of being able to build my own club, that I never even thought about what it would be like to have to play at my own club every night, which was amazing, but it was exhausting.
But every time I got back into the room, it was so invigorating and just filled me with energy, and then I was ready to go every night. I got to hear people I loved playing, people who I’d never heard playing. Every night was different and inspiring. It was a beautiful thing. I just need to pace myself, because I’m not that young anymore.
When I saw the set times, I wondered how you were sustaining it. It sounds like it was maybe not that sustainable, but you got the adrenaline rush of being there.
Yeah, exactly. I miss it, already. And I probably miss that adrenaline rush too, but I hope that I’ll do some more.
Do you have to prepare differently playing The Floor versus a large venue or big festival?
Yeah, definitely. The joy of playing one of the small ones is that you have to improvise as much as possible, because you’re so connected with the audience — it’s a back and forth between the people that you’re staring into the faces of. At festivals, there’s a certain element of improvisation for me, and I enjoy that, but I have to play my songs, and enough of them that people don’t get pissed off.
Tell me about like, one peak bliss moment for you in that run of The Floor.
François K in New York. I mean, I don’t like to use the word life-changing, but it was up there. I’ve met him a few times and played with him in New York at his club nights, and he’s always been great and very insightful. This time, I got to hang out with him for an hour before he played and talk about the history of dance in New York and how he’s seen the different waves of dance music over the many years he’s been playing. That was great. Then he went and played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen in my life, and it unified everybody in the room in a way that only happens very occasionally, even though I go to a lot of shows.
Did you learn anything about In Waves in terms of what parts of it really worked, while you were playing it out at The Floor?
I got to play it in full to all my friends in the London club before one of the club nights started. That was a really lovely thing. It felt like a momentous occasion, at the end of making the album. Then during the all The Floors, all the songs that hadn’t come out yet, people seemed to recognize it was me, which was really nice considering this album is quite different to the last one.
What do you think are your signatures? What are people recognizing that they know is you?
I have no idea, but I guess I would assume that people know my music better than me, because after I’ve finished it, I really don’t listen to it unless I have to.
So you haven’t been listening to In Waves outside of playing it out?
No. I haven’t listened to it since the day I approved the master, but I will listen to it the day it comes out.
Why do you think that is?
I find it kind of excruciating.
Oh, why?
Well, I’ve listened to it a million times in every detail, but also it feels like reading a diary or something from the past, even if it’s not that long ago, like this album. I just find it quite difficult — and that’s why, when I’m playing my songs from In Colour, I try and rework them, to keep it interesting for me and give them new life.
When is the last time you listened to In Colour in full?
I think six or seven years ago, when I was really struggling with what to do about not being able to make another album. I went with my mate to somewhere in Italy, and we did a road trip and listened to every album I’ve ever made, which sounds like torture to me. It kind of was, and I’m very grateful to my friend for sitting through all of that. It was really helpful, and that’s the last time I listened to it.
Can you share any details about that experience, of what was going through your mind when you were driving around Italy listening to your album and not necessarily enjoying the experience?
I remember being really surprised by a lot of decisions I had made as a younger person, and remembering who the hell I was when I made those decisions.
Who were you?
I don’t know. I guess I was drunk quite a lot of the time [laughs], having a lot of fun in my mid-20s. It’s very painstaking, all these decisions you feel are so important. Then listening to them 10 years later or five years later, you can’t believe you made any of the decisions. And you think they’re wrong, or I would have made completely different decisions now, but I guess that’s a part of it.
I guess nothing is ever done. There just comes a time when you have to turn it in.
That is true.
Was there a sense of relief when you turned in In Waves?
Yeah, massive relief. The album was actually meant to come out in June this year, and I had the test pressing made, then it just didn’t sound good enough. That’s why it’s coming out in September. But because of that, it meant that I got to finish the song with Robyn, and I think it made the album better. So there have been several moments where it was almost finished, but it’s been a slow burn.
If it had come out in June, it would have been eligible for a Grammy this year. Was there a thought of getting it out in time to be nominated, or was that not a thing?
No, that was not a thing.
With the album complete, what else, if anything, are you working on? Or is it more about preparing for the live shows?
I’ve been in the studio with the band a little bit. We’ve mostly been talking, not making music. Those [sessions] have been really nice. I’m actually focusing on spending the last two days in my house before I leave it for a year and a half and enjoying London for the last little bit, then really getting stuck into all the live shows.
So you’re going to be on the road for a year and a half, more or less?
If things go well, yes.
How do you mean if things go well?
I mean, I hope I get to tour this a lot, because it’s kind of the only way I connect with the album after it’s done. I’m not looking at reviews, and I’m not on socials or anything like that.
Well, maybe you just answered it — but tell me, what does success for the album look like to you?
Basically, I get a few nice texts from people whose opinion I appreciate, and I get to keep doing all of this.
