Romy: Mid Air review – xx singer shines through dancefloor gems | pop and rock

In an industry where the best way forward is considered to be churning out an endless stream of releases — the better to keep your audience engaged in a world filled with distractions — there’s something perversely pleasant about the aloof reserve of the xx. Their last album was released over six years ago; their last gig was in 2018. They clearly haven’t split up — their social media is full of recent photos of the trio in various combinations — but a sequel to I See You seems a long way off. “Blink twice if you make new music,” one desperate fan posted below an Instagram clip of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft cuddling on a Paris balcony.

Instead, they pursued solo careers — though several band members appeared on each other’s projects. The two resulting albums previously existed in different polarities. Jamie xx’s In Color was a kaleidoscopic hymn to London clubbing pleasures: old hardcore breaks, skipped beats, samples of pirate radio MCs and tracks titled Gosh and I Know There’s Gonna Be Good Times. At the other extreme was the shock of Sim’s Hideous Bastard. By far the least outspoken member of a band rarely known for its carefree chatter, it turned out he had a lot to say, albeit quietly: the album was a self-aggressive confessional; music as therapy, his songs rooted in the “shame and fear” he says he has felt since being diagnosed with HIV at age 17.

Madley Croft’s late entry into the solo album xx canon falls somewhere in between the other two. Like the singles that came before it — all but 2020’s stunning Lifetime are there — it sets up its booth where pop meets the dancefloor. Madley Croft co-producers include not only Jamie xx, but also Stuart Price and Fred Again – well-established practitioners in this particular field. Driven almost exclusively by four-against-the-floor beats and blessed with a voice that sounds ineffably melancholic even when singing about happiness, one could draw a comparison between Mid Air’s music and the house-fueled tracks on Everything. But the Girl’s 1996. album The Wounded Who Walk. You will also be able to find allusions to the filtered French house of Daft Punk and the fantastic She’s on My Mind, a light and light euro-disco. But what the sounds most often evoke is the wave of ultra-commercial trance hits of the early 2000s: Weightless’ synthesizer chords come in chattering triplets; the icy synth hits on Strong feel like a slightly more subtle version of Faithless’ trademark sound.

The melodies, meanwhile, rely heavily on Madley Croft’s pop smarts. The xx long has been a musical influence on mainstream pop – around the time I See You was released, hitman-songwriter Ryan Tedder claimed their name had been invoked as inspiration during “every other” writing session he’s been in – which Madley Croft has quietly capitalized on by writing for Mark Ronson, Benny Blanco and Tedder’s band OneRepublic and co-writing Silk City and Dua Lipa’s smash Electricity in 2018. While Mid Air sometimes recalls the trance of the early 2000s, what sets it apart is the liveliness of the tracks: they sound like songs, rather than toplines glued to club instrumentals.

But even though Mid Air is musically far more neon-tinged than the xx, its luminosity is harnessed in inward-looking lyrics that sound genuinely personal. They are preoccupied with love, but love is seen through the prism of shyness and reserve. Loveher’s chorus is a euphoric outburst, but it’s sandwiched between verses that implore a partner not to confuse natural reluctance with shame or distrust: “It’s not that I’m not proud in the company of strangers, it’s just that some things are for us. The same confusion fuels The Sea’s romantic woe. “Burnt to a thousand degrees” but seemingly unable to get the message across, the object of her affections left her: “She said ‘Don’t play this game with my heart and say it’s bullshit. love if not'”. The album’s evocations of transcendence on the dance floor, meanwhile, are underscored by the restlessness. “Dancing all alone again,” she sings on Enjoy Your Life. “Anxiety, my old friend. And “I didn’t think I deserved to feel so high above the ground,” Weightless says.

It’s a twist on the old disco trick of marrying uplifted music with downbeat lyrics, but it really packs a punch, partly because the uplifted music is incredibly well done, and partly because the vulnerability on display here feels genuine. and convincing. This sometimes extends to Madley Croft deliberately singing high in her register, audibly straining to hit the high notes. (That says a lot about how we’re so used to perfect-sounding 21st-century pop that it feels slightly shocking.) The result is an album that could set the tone for a party or the existential crisis fueled by the hangover the next day, which is a rare thing. If the space between xx albums can count as downtime, Madley Croft uses it wisely.

This week Alexis listened

Black Pumas – More Than A Love Song
The single from the Black Pumas’ highly anticipated second album is awesome: psych-soul acoustic guitar with plenty of room for Eric Burton’s incredible voice to soar.