There’s been a lot of early 90s rave aesthetics in popular culture lately, but an awful lot of it has been at the level of signifiers. Fila, Stüssy, Air Max 90s, smiley faces, sirens, rewinds, crowd noises, hop in a Ford Cortina, tribes coming together, dancing at dawn, baggy hoodies for goalposts, isn’t it, wasn’t it, hmm? There’s been a little less discussed, though, about what raving actually felt like, and in particular that it its revolutionary character came from everyone having the same feeling of being on the same drug at the same time.
Again, we might see the signifiers of tablets, sweaty faces and hands in the air in pop culture, but the feelings of empathy and dissolution of self – of simultaneously piloting a spaceship at light speed, falling in love for the first time, having a therapy breakthrough and melting into the crowd around you – aren’t so much present in retro-rave records and discourse. But Jamie “xx” Smith seems determined to change that.
Smith helped usher in the current wave of ‘90s aesthetics with tracks like his 2014 “All Under One Roof Raving”, and before that with The xx opened up a sense of wistful nostalgia and emotional attachment to ‘90s dance pop in the late 00s landscape of dubstep and grime. But his career overall as DJ, producer and remixer has been stylistically dissipated to say the least, technically extremely adept, but colliding all kinds of genres from across decades and often reliant on guest star vocalists for its character.
On this album, though – conceived in Covid lockdown and honed through his DJ sets since – he is absolutely laser focused on capturing the very particular feelings of release on an ecstatic dancefloor, and thanks to that has made some of his best work yet. It opens with samples from rowdy UK garage classic “RIP Groove” melding into dreamy piano chords: it’s jarring on first listen, then feels like he’s having fun with the negative perceptions of him as a gentrifier of hardcore sounds, and finally on repeat listens reveals itself as utterly blissful.
From there on in it’s a cascade of fizzing soul samples, house grooves, pop melodies and odd disembodied voices. It's frequently reminiscent of Basment Jaxx at their most kaleidoscopic: there are some retro signifiers, yes, but equally plenty of ultra-modernism – and everything is focused not in trying to recreate a staged picture of the ‘90s, but on capturing that feeling. Lyrics and vocal samples constantly circle around themes of dislocation and clarity, of being in the moment, of love and affection, and the absurdism of coming untethered from meaning.
At its best, it is a narcotic experience in itself. “Dafodil” [sic] with its nothern soul sample and psychedelic imagery takes you into a cartoon world. “Life” featuring dance pop star Robyn captures an almost unbearably intense peak experience in a three minute pop rush. In particular, “Breather” and the delirious “Falling Together” are up there with the very best sonic encapsulations of being completely off your tits in the midst of a crowd of people who feel just the same as you do – and are just about as sublime as any dance tracks you’ll hear this decade.
Like all the best drug music, it doesn’t require intoxication but offers it. You don’t need to be on LSD to enjoy Sergeant Pepper and you don’t need to be on ecstasy to enjoy this – but you should be ready to catch your breath or start involuntarily sweating and grinning at a couple of points. It’s not perfect: a reunion with The xx colleagues Romy and Oliver Sim is nice enough but feels shoehorned in, for starters. Also the sense of delirium can feel fragmentary at points if you’re not in the mood, and the pacing can seem a little rushed – there is definitely a great deluxe edition of extended remixes to be made from this. But as a capturing of what really makes the rave experience what it is, it takes some beating.
Listen to "Life":
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