Jamie xx is to electronic music what Beyoncé is to pop: a unifier. An artist with such deft skill and wide-reaching appeal, that you’ll be hard pressed to find a person out there who hasn’t found themselves crying to his stuff in their bedroom doing lockdown (“Angels” really do be hitting different rn) or going off on one in the club to a track from his debut solo LP, In Colour.
Well, after five years of DJ sets and appearances on other artist’s records, Jamie xx is about to make his solo return. Enter “idontknow”, a relentless, skittish, repeat-ready five minute track that feels tailor-made for a summer sans coronavirus, with everyone packed into some sweaty nightclub at six in the morning. All we can do, for now, is switch the lights off in the kitchen, turn the heating up and throw ourselves about while maintaining a safe distance from our flatmates and try and pretend it’s pretty much the same thing.
Heard the track? Sound familiar? Well, Jamie has been teasing it in his own DJ sets for the past few months now, refusing to reveal the track ID but sneakily passing it about between friends. Ben UFO, Four Tet, Bicep and Caribou have played it too. If this is a teaser for a new era of Jamie xx solo material, we’re not sure we’re ready. In Colour set the bar high, so whatever’s to come after this, after a half decade of rumination, is bound to blow our socks off.
In the meantime, get your teeth into this, stream it online, check out the trailer for the Oona Doherty-choreographed dance video, and put in a pre-order for the vinyl dropping via independent outlets only on 1 May. Here’s where you can find it.