Dance

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.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

After it was all wrapped, the producer then traveled to the woods 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.”

Trending on Billboard

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, with 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 option I appreciate, and I get to keep doing all of this.

Hyperpop pioneer SOPHIE has been honored with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 38th birthday (September 17). The Google Doodle is accompanied by a short clip soundtracked by “Immaterial” from Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, her sole studio album released in 2019, and is inspired by her most iconic look and an […]

This week in dance music: The 2024 Paralympics Closing Ceremony in Paris was a French electronic music extravaganza, we looked at why La Roux’s 2009 electro-pop classic “Bulletproof” is back on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, Meow Wolf Houston announced its opening date and radio-influenced theme, Richie Hawtin lamented how “the famous, most followed DJ’s of our scene failed us” when commenting on the closure of DJ profit sharing platform Aslice and the Association For Electronic Music announced a new campaign to help DJs get more visibility and profit when their music is posted to social media by other artists.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Meanwhile, Michael Bibi gave a figuratively and literally big check to the hospital where he received cancer treatment via money raised by his comeback show, The World DanceSport Federation explained why Australian breakdancer Raygun is ranked No. 1 in the world, the annual dance music conference IMS announced that it’s expanding to Dubai in November, Nocturnal Wonderland 2024 was cancelled due to wildfires in Southern California and Charli XCX and Troye Sivan released a remix of “Talk Talk.”

Trending on Billboard

That’s a lot — and there’s more! These are the best new dance tracks of the week.

Rüfüs du Sol, “Break My Love”

[embedded content]

Since rising out of their native Australia in the mid-2010s, Rüfüs du Sol has been a chief architect and arbiter of that late-nights-and-sunrises strain of dark, deep house-oriented electro house that’s come to soundtrack the Tulum-to-Ibiza-to-Burning Man circuit. (In fact, their track “On My Knees” won the best dance/electronic Grammy for it in 2022.) The group’s latest, “Break My Love,” is Rüfüs at their very best, with the song delivering that signature steamy, hypnotic, big rise and lush release vibe and coming with a video in which the guys flex their playful side by playing a trio of ’70s era secret agents plotting a heist. (Wait for the twist at the end.)

Following two recent singles, “Break My Love” also comes with news that the group will release their fifth studio album, Inhale/Exhale, on October 11, through their own Rose Avenue Records and Reprise. Ahead of that, they’ll headline San Francisco’s Portola Festival on September 28. — KATIE BAIN

Four Tet & Ellie Goulding, “In My Dreams”

[embedded content]

Ellie Goulding has been swimming in the deep end of the electronic world lately, with her 2023 Calvin Harris trance collab “Miracle” and its recent followup, “Free.” Ever-agile, she now jumps over to the IDM side of the genre with “In My Dreams,” a collab with Four Tet. (Which itself follows their own 2020 single “Baby.”) The producer uses Goulding’s voice to thread the production together, weaving it like silk through his own propulsive and dichotomous distorted beats and glowing chimes.

The project, he writes, came about in late 2023, when “Ellie text[ed] me with a couple of voice notes for a song idea. Words and melodies she was singing into her phone and she asked me if I could use them to make something. She’s told me in the past she likes to send me vocals that I can just use as sound and turn into whatever I want (which is how the track ‘Bab’y happened a few years ago). I found other sounds to go with it and made ‘In My Dreams.’ She added some new vocal parts but we ended up keeping the voice note recordings as the main vocal. I guess the first take is often the most magical.” “In My Dreams” is out through Four Tet’s Text Records.

Anna Lunoe, “Pearl”

[embedded content]

An international DJ, radio host, podcaster, and producer with a discography dating back 12 years, Anna Lunoe’s résumé is so long that it’s hard to believe she’s never released an album. Somehow it’s true, but not for much longer: The Sydney-based artist has just announced her debut LP, Pearl, out October 25 on NLV Records, the label from her longtime friend Nina Las Vegas. Lunoe has also shared its title track, made with frequent partner Jack Glass of Bag Raiders. “Pearl” is dreamy and buoyant, rippling with luminescent synth arpeggios and a captivating vocal melody. Beneath that bubbly exterior, stomping drums and rave chords add a layer of toughness and urgency.

“To me,” Lunoe says, “the sentiment in this song is about fighting for your spirit and creative force in a world that isn’t really designed for us to hold on to it. Sonically, this was an exercise in emotion and clarifying a feeling as opposed to straight up club tune-making – it’s more sincere than I’ve allowed myself to be publicly before, but those few who get to hear my scruffy demos know this Anna well.” — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ

Hayden James, We Could Be Love

[embedded content]

On his third album, We Could Be Love, Hayden James shows his continued prowess in blending emotive pop songwriting with club sounds. The deeply groovy “Patience,” which explores the cautious nature of relationships, delivers catharsis in its rolling apex; “Imagine” brims with hope atop swirling melodic techno and “All In” is a love rush wrapped in warm piano house. The producer even goes straight club on “The Pleasure,” a strutting tech-house track ready to be cued up on an Ibiza dance floor, but the featured vocalists (Shells, Karen Harding, AR/CO and many more) help give We Could Be Love its soul. James heads out on a North American tour later this month. — K.R.

Floating Points, Cascade

[embedded content]

Since his 2019 album Crush, Floating Points has followed inspiration across various genres and mediums, from collaboration with the late sax legend Pharoah Sanders on an album to scoring a ballet and forthcoming anime series. His new album, Cascade, marks a triumphant return to the dance floor. A collection of unconventional club bangers, it pulses with twitchy textures, glistening melodies, synth freak-outs and gravelly drums. Standout track “Afflecks Palace” is a descent into chaos, weaving through radar-like synths, ghostly croons, acid accents and vibrant string plucks. As everything converges into a dense, tangled mass, a stutter-step leads to a dizzying space rave. — K.R.

Kaleena Zanders & Tchami, “Daddy Keeps Calling”

[embedded content]

Ring, ring. Who’s on the line? It’s new-gen dance diva Kaleena Zanders (with Tchami joining on three-way) sharing a new single, “Daddy Keeps Calling.” The piano-house track surges with soulful energy, its gospel-choir harmonies, hand claps and enveloping organ chords a fitting soundtrack to Zanders’ celebration of club communion: “Ooh Lord, burning up, don’t save me ‘til I’ve had enough/ Red light pull me in, losing control on the floor again.” “Daddy Keeps Calling” is the pair’s second collaboration following this year’s “Giving Me Life,” and it will feature on Zanders’ newly announced Glorified EP, out October 18 via Helix Records.

“When I wrote the lyrics to ‘Daddy Keeps Calling’ with prolific singer songwriter/producer/DJ Bright Lights, we knew it was a unique perspective on songs made for the dancefloor,” Zanders writes. “In our heads we imagined the dance floor being the dominant force in our lives that drives us to create dance music and the force that so many people gather around. With that said, in this case playing off of sensual role play Daddy is the dancefloor and the nucleus that binds us all.” — K.R.

FKA twigs, “Eusexua” 

[embedded content]

Have you experienced eusexua? That’s the question FKA twigs asked ahead of her new single “Eusexua.” twigs, who coined the term, describes eusexua as “momentary transcendence” and “the pinnacle of human experience” – and transcendent “Eusexua” is. It’s a rave lifted into the highest realms, with a sprawling soundscape of whirring trance synths and resonant piano keys that build to an ecstatic crescendo. Twigs’ vocals are as hauntingly angelic as ever, evoking a siren’s call in her pursuit of connection beyond this earthly plane. Co-produced with Koreless and Eartheater, “Eusexua” is the title track of her forthcoming album. “I moved to Prague a couple summers ago, fell in love with techno,” she told fans via Discord. “The album isn’t techno but the spirit is there fr.” — K.R.

WhoMadeWho, Kiss & Forget

[embedded content]

Today Danish trio WhoMadeWho release their eight (!) studio album, the promisingly titled Kiss & Forget. The projects opens with “Saturday Pt. 1” and “Saturday Pt. 2,” but it’s not the fist pumps and bangers mood those titles may conjure. Instead, single piano notes are paired with strings and a faraway synth altogether conjuring a feeling of distance and longing, mystery and depth. The two-plus minute “Pt. 1” then opens up to “Pt. 2,” on which a beat finally drops, with the guys  — Tomas Høffding, Tomas Barfod, and Jeppe Kjellberg  — layering in chimes and drum crashes and more strings then eventually kickdrum for a sound that, the older you get, the more you actually want your Saturdays to feel like. The rest of the 13-track album features collaborations with Ry X, Dutch titan Kölsch, Adriatique and Blue Hawaii. WhoMadeWho plays a pair of U.S. dates, in Boston and Los Angeles, later this month. — K.B.

Dan Ghenacia, “Rouge ou Noir”

[embedded content]

Does anybody remember laughter? Shake off all the ails you, if only for three minutes and 16 seconds, with this absolute party of a disco track by Parisian producer Dan Ghenacia. A spacey, synthy, sexy and simply funky swirl, “Rouge ou Noir” was recorded at Los Angeles’ Stratasonic, a private and state-of-the-art studios run by in-house producers and home to a mouthwatering assemblage of vintage gear and new tech, now open to service both emerging and veteran artists. “Rouge ou Noir” is also the name of the EP this track hails from, with the bubbly “Chilly” working as a slinky B-side. — K.B.