Being a member of one of the defining indie rock bands during the 2010s is a well-deserved confidence booster. A year after the xx released 2017’s I See You, their third album, bandmate and childhood friend Oliver Sim remembered a chat he had with producer Jamie xx about the future when they were teenagers. “I think I’m at peace with the fact that I’m not going to make big waves in the world,” Sim recalled Smith saying. It’s a statement that buzzes with teenage insecurity or foreshadows a cool humility. Whatever the tone, its sentiment was undoubtedly wrong.

In retrospect, that moment reads as the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Already an acclaimed musician outside of his work with the xx, he’s now ready to release his long-awaited sophomore album In Waves, the follow-up to 2015’s In Colour. After nine years, his debut album feels eternal while capturing the essence of the mid 2010s — a bright, promising period right before everything unraveled. In Waves feels like a subconscious wink to that adolescent proclamation, with tracks that evoke gossiping with friends in the club bathroom to late night existential chats, offering a space where the ego can be indulged and then liberated.

In Waves operates, in several aspects, as an antithesis to its predecessor. There are loads more flock-to-the-floor bangers, harbingers of sweat and euphoria. There are significantly more collaborations, including contributions from his bandmates, Robyn, and the Avalanches. Even the album cover is purposefully drained of the Technicolor prominent in past artwork.

Still, Smith’s confidence, along with his craft, is continuously being pushed and refined. While chatting over the phone, he elaborates more on this project’s shift. “I care less about what people think,” he says. “In Colour being my first album, even though it was made very insularly, I was aware that it was going to be out there in the world. It was an exciting prospect for me to be able to carve my own way out as a solo person. And this time, I’ve had to overcome that, and sort of go the opposite way and stop thinking about the fact that everyone’s gonna hear it in order to be able to finish it. And it’s a much nicer place to be mentally.”

In the conversation below, Jamie xx unpacks his fluctuating relationship with dance music, the importance of mistakes, and how this album came to be the most genuine impression of himself.

1. “Wanna”

JAMIE XX: I definitely was still sort of trying to find my way into why I was making an album whilst that track still existed. I never thought of that track as necessarily being on an album. I made it quite fast as a thing to play in my DJ sets, to have a reset moment and have a moment of calm. I played it out for years, and people kept asking me about it.

After the album came together, did you have a better sense of why you wanted this song to open the journey?

JAMIE XX: I spent a long time trying to tracklist this album to make it feel like an album, basically. It’s still very important to me that albums feel like albums, especially in this time of streaming and stuff. I always put that one in the middle of all my tracklists when I was trying to work it out. And then I played the album to Kieran Hebden, Four Tet. He told me, basically, to flip it all around — what is the first half used to be the second half. That was a great piece of advice. That was a big part of the puzzle in how to make the album work.

What made it click for you looking back on that change?

JAMIE XX: I was hesitant to do it for a while anyway. I like that that’s the start of the album because it kind of feels like entering from the end of In Colour. As the album progresses it gets further away from In Colour.

After finishing In Colour, did you already know you wanted to do another album?

JAMIE XX: I did a little while after I finished it, maybe a year after. I was always making music. I always am, wherever I am. And I had a whole idea about what the next album would be. Then I went home after we made the xx third album; I had some time at home in between tours. I tried to execute the idea that I had in my head about what my next album would be. I made loads of music. But because there was a concept behind it, it was a bit boring and it didn’t actually come to life the way that I’d imagined. All the music that I make that I think works and makes me feel something is usually a series of mistakes. It’s sort of following the route that the music, the creation, takes me down rather than having any preconceived idea.

I love that. I’m also curious to ask about the sampling here. How did the Double 99 sample and the Andy Quinn sample become married in your mind?

JAMIE XX: As I was trying to make something for my DJ sets, I wanted to have something that was very recognizable, especially in the UK, then flip it on its head and sort of take people by surprise, and sort of maybe emotionally jerk a big crowd in a DJ set. Which is something I always like to do. And I love those strings which I’d originally seen in some movie trailer. I’d been sampling them for a while, trying to fit them in various other things and never quite worked. It then was a mixture of strings that I’d made and that string sample but eventually worked on this.

2. “Treat Each Other Right”

To your point about getting away from In Colour, this feels so much sharper and urgent than the easiness of In Colour. How’d this track come about and why did you choose it to announce the project?

JAMIE XX: It was one of the last things that I made for the album. I was in a “fuck it” headspace. I wanted to make something that was really fun for me to make and make it kind of erratic with tempo changes. It came about quite quickly, which doesn’t happen that often. I was trying loads of things and not thinking too much about it because I was at the end of the album process and I thought one last go at something could make the album better. I was listening to a lot of current producers that, especially out of the UK and a bit in Europe, are doing similar stuff—fast and break beaty and also kind of quite intense with lots of little drops and changes throughout rather than a traditional structure, which I really liked. And I have been playing a lot of that sort of stuff in my DJ sets, so it was kind of my attempt at doing that and being inspired by the younger generation.

What were those specific artists that were inspiring you?

JAMIE XX: Loads of stuff that has not even come out, but that’s on SoundCloud. That sort of thing. There’s a whole generation of producers and a lot of those sounds being played on pirate radio in the UK at the moment. Metrist is a guy who — he actually played at the Floor in London, that was the first time I’ve met him — but I’ve been listening to his productions, and it’s very much that sort of world. It’s almost like listening to a movie trailer or but you can also dance to it. It’s wild.

The visual that accompanies it is quite dramatic and almost scary. Were you visualizing the space or scene of what these tracks would be like?

JAMIE XX: What I’ve learned over the years is find somebody whose work you love, and who can pull off anything, pull it off better than you could ever dream of, and let them do whatever they want. I’ve definitely had a few experiences of collaborating, and there being too many cooks. And it gets watered down. So Rosie Marks, who directed the video, was living with me in LA during the lockdown. And we were working side by side and going surfing every day. And basically just doing that as a routine. And inspiring each other, but working in totally different fields. So I always knew that I wanted to ask her to do something when the music finally came out.

3. “Waited All Night” (Feat. Romy & Oliver Sim)

JAMIE XX: We’ve never all had solo projects out until like this year. Now we’ve been back in the studio as a band, and the dynamic is a little bit different because I guess there’s options. My frame of mind, and what I’m trying to get across from my side of the studio, is that we should just not be thinking about things in terms of putting anything in any pockets. Anything could be for us. It’s great that we have these other outlets, but we basically just should be making music and having fun. And that’s kind of the best bit.

Speaking to your past experience with too many cooks in the kitchen. This album focuses a lot more on collaboration. Was that an intentional thing to collaborate more on this album, maybe having had experience of how to find a balance with other artists?

JAMIE XX: Generally, In Colour was very inward. I spent a lot of time making it in my headphones on my own. And I definitely spent a lot of time making this on my own as well. And it’s kind of my happy place. But it can also get very confusing when you have nobody to bounce ideas off of. The sound of this album feels to me like it’s a bit more outward. I’ve finished a lot of the tracks by playing them to crowds. The collaborations — although sometimes uncomfortable for me to go into a studio with a whole new set of people and spend days working on stuff, it’s definitely out of my comfort zone — but it always is good for me, even if it means the end of the session I get to go home and make music on my own again, but I feel inspired. So that was part of the process of the collaboration.

4. “Baddy On The Floor” (Feat. Honey Dijon)

How did you connect with Honey Dijon? Did you have conversations about how any kind of dance music or house music has been taking over mainstream charts?

JAMIE XX: I met her when we played together in Spain, or in Bilbao. The xx put on a festival in Bilbao. And Honey came down and played. That’s the first time I’d seen her and met her. That was a long time ago. She was just awesome and so cool and just a great DJ. We kept in touch a little bit. She got in contact during the pandemic and asked me to make some music for her album. And it was at a point where I was struggling to make anything that felt good to me, or like maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself. So as soon as I had her in mind, for making music, it kind of all just flowed. And I made the basis of “Baddy On The Floor” in one day. And then I was in a good state of mind and able to make loads of music after that. So I was very grateful to her for that inspiration.

What was the thinking behind putting that song out as the first single?

JAMIE XX: I think it’s quite instant. And I’d been playing at festivals a bunch. It always went down well. And it’s also quite different to what people might expect having only heard In Colour.

How has your mindset changed about dance music and its social impact?

JAMIE XX: It was very noticeable as the world was opening up after the pandemic, and there were all these little raves happening near where I live. Because it was still illegal, but people just had to get together and dance. I thought it was a beautiful thing to see. And it made me feel the same things that I felt when I first started going to clubs.

Part of the struggle of making this album was the fact that the first album was popular. And, that dance music went from being, to me at least, this thing that I loved, that was very dear to my heart and personal — obviously, a lot of people loved it — but it kind of still felt like it was underground and cool. I felt lucky to be able to experience and be a part of that. There was especially a scene that was coming out of where I lived in London, so it made me feel especially close to it. It going from that to where we we’re at now with it being everywhere, being all pop music, and it kind of losing a certain edge. I had to get my head around all that stuff. And in the end, stop thinking about everybody else and what it means to everybody else, and what I had done and what that may have meant to some people. Just make music for the joy of it and go back to the reasons why I started making music when I was just doing it in my bedroom without expecting anybody to hear it. That allowed me to be able to finish this record.

Was it just making music that felt different or listening to dance music as well that felt like you weren’t connecting in the same way?

JAMIE XX: I still like going out and going to clubs, it’s always a thing for me no matter where my general thoughts were about listening to dance music. But I stopped listening to most modern music for a long time at home because it would make me think about work and made me think about what I would do. I just wanted to use music as I used to — for pure pleasure. So I was listening to stuff, there wasn’t anything like what I was making. That’s why some of the samples ended up creeping into the album, as well, because I was listening to a lot of soul and jazz.

5. “Dafodil” (Feat. Kelsey Lu, John Glacier, & Panda Bear)

JAMIE XX: The first track that I made that made me think I could actually finally make an album was “Dafodil,” and that was collaboration over voice note essentially, texting Kelsey Lu. Those collaborations had to happen separately anyway because we were all in lockdown in different parts of the world. It was a nice entryway into the collaboration side of things.

I know you’ve worked with Kelsey Lu before, but was it your first time working with Panda Bear and John Glacier?

JAMIE XX: Yes, I actually sent out the version of “Dafodil” with just Kelsey Lu’s voice and an instrumental to 30 different artists during the lockdown, and gave them a vague theme which was summer in London. I asked people to do verses based on their memories from a summer in London. I’ve got a lot of versions of this song, and there could be like a 20-minute version somewhere down the line.

That track really stuck out to me. There’s a tension going on with nostalgia, but also maybe not trying to be completely rose-tinted. There’s a lyric about “Drinks on me, Literally/ Feel like a mess / Feels like a dream.”

JAMIE XX: Yeah, I love that lyric. When I first heard that, it’s a great one.

There’s also the A$AP Rocky sample, which I’m really curious how that got incorporated.

JAMIE XX: I basically worked on this track on the day it started until very close to the end of finishing the album. I was just constantly finding things that could fit in that match the theme, because it’s so sort of choppy. That song really has the ability to go anywhere. Even the three artists that ended up being on the final album track, they’re all very different. I was watching a documentary. And I just heard that quote, I thought it could work very well as part of the song but there’s loads of other things like that that didn’t make it in there.

And there’s like static running through it, right? I feel like it almost feels like you’re trying to make it seem kind of like a memory.

JAMIE XX: I like that. It’s actually technically a way of making the synths sound like that, where you have to play white noise essentially through a vocoder triggering a synth. But it makes that strange sound. I like that. I’ve never thought of it like that.

6. “Still Summer”

Following three collaborative tracks, how were you thinking about the album’s pacing and balancing the features?

JAMIE XX: I always loved “Still Summer.” It was a bunch of mistakes that all worked really well. I really wanted it to be on the album, but I couldn’t find a place for it for a long time. I think some of this album is more maximal than stuff I’ve done before. So it was about finding the right place for this track because it does feel like a bit of a calmer, maybe not calmer, but a bit more spacious moment.

That track had loads of different names and it’s one of the last ones I came up with. I wanted it to be a reference to the summer during the pandemic, which was very still and also a reference to hanging on to summer for as long as you can.

How did the “Nights In White Satin” interpolation come about?

JAMIE XX: It’s an amazing song. I was trying stuff that I wouldn’t normally try. And I felt like I’d never heard those kinds of chords in a dance song, or those two worlds come together.

You’ve mentioned a couple times this process of making mistakes. I would love to hear more about what you mean by mistake?

JAMIE XX: It can be anything from hitting a bunch of notes on a synth that suddenly make you feel a certain way. Or, experimenting using software in a way that I’ve never used it before or it wasn’t intended to be used that makes something sonically catch your ear, but also has a certain feeling attached to it. The other chords in “Still Summer,” that are in the first break, that was another thing where I really liked the chords but when I made them it sounded like a very done thing — some nice synthy chords come in at a breakdown in a dance song. Then, I bounced them out and time-stretched them all and messed with them in a way that I would not normally mess with an already nice sounding set of synth chords. It ended up sounding more like a strummed guitar, I think, or something that you can’t quite put your finger on. I just love that. It made it a lot more organic. But all of this was done without knowing what it would end up sounding like.

I actually brought it to Romy at one point when she was working on her album. She recorded a bunch of vocals for one of the songs that ended up on her album, but I’m glad that it ended up as an instrumental and it was also a good vehicle to inspire one of Romy’s songs.

The instrumental songs really allow the album to breathe. Were you very conscious about having those spaces throughout?

JAMIE XX: Yeah, definitely. In terms of as a listen as well, I was aware that I didn’t want it to feel too busy. But I wanted to keep the way it sounded because that was what was coming out of me naturally. And I felt like it was a bit of an anti- all of the sort of really popular dance music that’s in the world at the time, which is very spacious. Some of it is not as emotional as it intends to be. It feels a bit forced. There’s only so much of it that sort of busy stuff that I could put on the album that would work where it could still be listenable. It was very much a balancing act.

7. “Life” (Feat. Robyn)

What was it like working with Robyn? Was this your first time working together?

JAMIE XX: No, I’ve been working with her for years actually. I worked a bit with her on Honey. We just get into the studio occasionally. She’s super inspiring to work with and also to hang out with. My ex-girlfriend was from Stockholm, so I used to go there a lot and I would hang out with Robyn sometimes. Robyn came to stay at my house in London. I would stay at her house in LA. We had a nice connection, and when I made that instrumental it had so much energy in it already that I needed somebody that could match that energy. I knew that Robyn could do it basically.

I had made the whole instrumental and texted her and then I think the day later or something, she sent it back with basically what became the final vocal. It was all very natural, quick.

I’m obsessed with the lyric “You’re giving my first kiss / Giving my walk of shame / Giving me strong torso.”

JAMIE XX: That was really fun. That was the only bit that I think I was in the studio with her. She was writing the bits and we were sitting together. I had that bit of the song on a loop and she was coming up with some of the silliest shit and stuff that she would say to her friends in the club. It was kind of a joke. But then, as it kept going, it just was obvious that that was the best thing that we had been writing that day. I’m so glad all that stuff and, like, her laughter made it into the track.

8. “The Feeling I Get From You”

This one feels like an outlier on the album maybe because of how soft it is.

JAMIE XX: It was towards the end-ish of making the album. I felt like I wanted to put something more emotional in there. I was still missing a few bits that are now on the album. But I didn’t want the album to be emotionless or just all fun. I was driving back from a surf and I heard the original sample. There’s this new AI software that’s come out recently that can basically take the stems apart from a piece of music without having the stamps, which is pretty revolutionary. It allowed me to take vocals off of it without having access to any of the parts to the song. It was me experimenting with that new software and wanting to make something more emotional and also wanting to play the piano which I’d been doing a lot recently because I just bought a new piano in LA.

Was that the only track that used that software?

JAMIE XX: I did it on “Breather” as well because there was like yoga music in the background vocals.

I would love to hear more about the impact of surfing on your music. In the beginning, skating was a huge influence and I was wondering if there’s a parallel?

JAMIE XX: It’s actually quite detrimental to making music because whenever I go for a surf in the morning, if it’s good — which, I mean, even if it’s not good, actually just getting up and making yourself jump into some cold water every day is so satisfying — it makes you feel good for the rest of the day. It’s actually quite difficult to go and make music afterwards and get into that different place where sometimes, most of the time feeling good doesn’t necessarily lend itself to making good music. So I kind of have to separate the two.

But it has given me a good perspective on how nice life can be and that sort of calmness that you can get. I really want to try and achieve that more in my everyday life. Like whether or not I’m surfing. But yes, it’s just such a great feeling.

That’s really interesting mentioning that feeling good is not necessarily the best for making music considering that most of the album is about being in a euphoric state.

JAMIE XX: I think a lot of it is sort of dreaming about feeling like that rather than actually feeling like that.

9. “Breather”

Was there a particular sample on this album that was a surprise that made it?

JAMIE XX: There’s loads actually. The sample from “Breather” kind of started out as a joke. It was the yoga video that I was doing in lockdown every day to stay sane. And I thought that like the things that she was saying, could be used in the exact opposite scenario — being high in a club, and doing all the things that make your body feel worse in the long term, but good in the short term. I quite liked that juxtaposition. And so I ended up sampling that yoga video, and that’s what the speaking is in the middle of “Breather.”

10. “All You Children” (Feat. The Avalanches)

JAMIE XX: It’s quite remarkable how well we work together. Basically their first album came out when I was 11 years old, and it was one of the first records which I listened to endlessly and tried to figure out how they made it. I didn’t have any music production software or anything on a computer. I had a PlayStation game where you could make music called Music 2000. A lot of the way I taught myself how to make music was by listening to the album. So our style of making music and our tastes align very well. And it’s, it’s just such a joy to work with them and also to be able to talk to them about music and records and how they made that album. I was definitely a bit obsessed with them when I was a kid.

Does it feel kind of like a full circle moment?

JAMIE XX: Yeah, definitely. I kind of miss the mystery that I had when I was a kid because there was no information about them online as well. Or not even online, just like all of the information I had was on the back of their CD case. And I spent a lot of time trying to buy all of the records that they sampled and stuff like that. And now some of that mystery is gone, but it’s been replaced with an actual friendship and learning a lot, which is really cool.

For these sessions were you both contributing sampling ideas or how did the Nikki Giovanni poem make its way into this?

JAMIE XX: I’ve had that record for a long time. I bought it when I was in Washington, DC, probably like 15 years ago, and always knew that I wanted to use it at some point. “Every Single Weekend,” there was a much longer version with loads of other parts. That was the track that we started collaborating on. And there was a lot of stuff getting sent back and forth, and stems going back and forth. And at some point, I think there’s going to be a longer version that comes out, I hope, with them. But then I asked them to send me a bunch of samples of records of kids singing that they had, because that’s kind of one of their staples. And there was already some of that “Every Single Weekend.” Then one of the samples they sent me, I knew that I could chop it into this melody that ended up being the basis for “All You Children.”

11. “Every Single Weekend (Interlude)”

Why did you feel it was necessary to put the interlude after?

JAMIE XX: I hope that the full version of that track will come out at a later date.

How much longer is that original track?

JAMIE XX: Well it’s unfinished, but at the moment it is probably like 10 minutes long, but it won’t be that long.

I love that part towards the end of the track, someone saying “It’s not the end.”

JAMIE XX: I spend a lot of time when I’m in clubs with the voice memo record button on just to pick up noise that I can weave into tracks to give some extra life, even if it’s super low down in the mix. That also helps tie the sonics of the record together. That little bit at the end of the song, one of my best friends Laura, saying, “This isn’t the end.” She thought it was the last track of the night and then there was another hour to go when we were out raving at something in London. I liked that it could also be deeper than that. Especially at the end of that piece of music, which is quite dreamy.

12. “Falling Together” (Feat. Oona Doherty)

JAMIE XX: I went to her show in London a long time ago. It was one of the best things I’d seen in a long time. I got in touch and she made a video for me during lockdown for “Idontknow” and then I worked with her on her contemporary dance piece that’s now on tour. She’s a really inspiring person to talk to, has so much energy, and is super honest and moves incredibly. So it was really nice to be able to work with her on that and get on the phone with her and have these nice conversations. But I also loved listening to her voice and she sent me this 25-minute-long voice note which was sort of the demo for the piece of music that I was making for her contemporary dance piece but that voice note is what I ended up chopping up and turning into the spoken word thing on “Falling Together.”

I’m fascinated by her being a dancer and then you being someone that makes dance music and curious what your conversations have been like regarding the larger purpose of dance music. But it sounds like it was that voice note.

JAMIE XX: The piece that we ended up making together, I did the music for the second half, which is about half an hour long. It is incredible and super intense, quite uncomfortable and dark — very different to “Falling Together.” But I love it. It goes very in depth into what “Falling Together” kind of touches on and I chose the sort of uplifting and most interpretable parts of that monologue for “Falling Together.” I hope that the contemporary dance piece can come out at some point as well just as audio because it’d be nice for that to exist too.

What was your response to that voice note?

JAMIE XX: I don’t remember actually. I remember having a phone conversation with her. After she said that, or before, she said something like that, where she was worried that the dance piece would be too scary and too dark. I think originally she wanted to have people being killed on stage and there to be blood packs happening during the dance piece. I remember telling her not to overthink it, and she should just go with what felt right and she did. It’s very dark and awesome.

Why did you feel it was important for that to be the closing song?

JAMIE XX: I didn’t know for a long time if it should. I felt for a while maybe it was sort of too much as an ending song, too serious or maybe too preachy even. But as I played it out, and everybody seemed to love it, I think I was overthinking it.

I remember when I first made it and I was sitting in my studio in Soho. I was looking out because I have this great view of London, and listening to it on repeat. It was very moving. I rarely get moved by my own, whilst I’m making music in such a way. It is moving for me and that’s when it works best but this was more emotional for some reason. I think it was because of Oona’s voice. Also, I felt like I was getting closer to being able to finish my album.

How did the clock ticking make it in there?

JAMIE XX: Weirdly, it wasn’t an intentional, maybe not that weirdly because of the way that I make music, but it was a rhythmic element that helps the drums work all together because of the way the snares are syncopated. It needed something on every on beat, on the 1234, for the snares to be able to syncopate around something for the groove to work. As I started deconstructing the track towards the end, the clock is naturally the last thing in there. By chance or subliminally or something, the last verse that Oona says and the ticking clock, I think they work and it makes sense.

How did you find the balance between these existential themes and the cathartic release of dance music?

JAMIE XX: I think a lot of it is in how you pair the music with the words and how it’s framed. If the whole album was like that last track, the last track wouldn’t be impactful. But the fact that there’s songs like “Life” which are very up and fun and then songs like “Falling Together” means, I hope, that people will get sort of the scope of it and that it can be taken seriously if you are in that mood, but some of it can be taken tongue in cheek. If you knew me or like, as my friends know me, they would understand it. I tried to get that impression of my genuine self across.

In Waves is out now on Island.