Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Jamie xx is not an X-rated musician. The Londoner, real name Jamie Smith, takes his stage moniker from his band, The xx. Their music is based around murmured vocals and muted sounds, an atmospheric register pitched somewhere between reserve, politeness and mystery. They released their first album in 2009, an indie hit that won the Mercury prize.This success provided Smith with the launch pad for a no-less-successful side-career as a DJ and electronic producer. His debut solo album In Colour came out in 2015. Its manicured, brightly honed tour of various UK dance music styles represented a more dynamic type of nightlife than his band’s downtempo nocturnes. The album deservedly won acclaim and did well in the charts. But it also met with territorial criticism for supposedly repackaging underground club music for the mainstream.Nine years later, the follow-up arrives. Smith has been busy in the interim, releasing an album with The xx in 2017, working as a DJ and producing other artists, including solo records by his bandmates. But he has also spoken of “a little crisis” of artistic faith linked to the nomadic slog of touring and DJing, and also the purist sniping that In Colour received.In Waves is his response. It is a more expansive record than its predecessor, unleashing the peaks and drops that run through the big-room clubbing circuit like rollercoasters. Its best tracks (“Treat Each Other Right”, “Still Summer”) are sinewy and light on their feet, with deft twists and turns in action. But others are at once overstimulated and underwhelming.“Life” is a euphoric house number with Robyn as guest vocalist that gets off to a storming start before lapsing into routine dance-pop. “The Feeling I Get from You” has a hubbub of vocal samples arranged around a bland beat and sentimental piano. “All You Children” is an electro-disco link up with Australian duo The Avalanches that makes saccharine use of a sampled 1970s children’s choir. Platitudes about feeling joy and being present recur throughout the album like rhetorical comfort food. In Waves is lively but lacks bite.★★☆☆☆‘In Waves’ is released by Young
