In ColourE

The Artist

Jamie xx, born Jamie Smith, is the London-based producer and one-third of the acclaimed indie band The xx, where he handles the beats, samples, and atmospheric textures behind Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim's whispered vocals. Raised on the pirate radio broadcasts of UK garage, jungle, and rave culture, he built his solo reputation through club-ready remixes and his 2011 collaboration with the late poet Gil Scott-Heron, We're New Here. His production style blends hushed intimacy with dancefloor euphoria, weaving vintage sample culture into modern electronic frameworks. In Colour was his proper solo debut, arriving in 2015 after six years of quiet accumulation. It positioned him as one of the most distinctive voices in British electronic music, capable of moving between the bedroom and the warehouse without breaking stride.

The Album

Released in May 2015 on Young Turks, In Colour was self-produced by Jamie xx over roughly six years, assembled between tours with The xx and DJ residencies in London. The album functions as a personal history of UK dance music, refracting jungle breaks, house euphoria, garage swing, and rave nostalgia through a melancholic, homesick lens. Guest vocals from Romy, Oliver Sim, and Young Thug appear across the record, but the emotional through-line is Jamie's own, alternating between solitary reflection and communal release. Recording spanned home studios and club soundchecks, and the mix leans on analog warmth, steel drums, tape hiss, and vocal samples pulled from old rave tapes. Thematically, it grapples with the loneliness that follows the peak of a great night out, the crowd's roar giving way to the empty walk home.

Listen For

The opening crowd roar. "Gosh" begins with a chopped MC vocal and a churning jungle bassline that recreates the feeling of walking into a rave already in progress. Notice how the synth melody eventually blooms out of the chaos.

Steel drums as emotional shorthand. Listen for how the bright, tropical timbre of steel pans cuts through tracks like "Obvs" and elsewhere, adding warmth to otherwise cool electronic productions.

The Romy vocal thread. Her voice appears on "SeeSaw," "Loud Places," and "Stranger in a Room," each time carrying a different shade of longing. Track how her delivery shifts across these three appearances.

Sample as ghost. "I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times)" flips a soul sample into something both celebratory and haunted, with Young Thug and Popcaan riding a rhythm that feels borrowed from a distant party.

The comedown structure. Notice how the album's energy peaks in the middle and drifts inward toward the end, with "Girl" closing on a hushed, spoken note rather than a climactic drop.