In Colour

What Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” was to the hippie era, Jamie xx’s solo debut is to British club culture: a wistful valentine conjuring a more innocent time. Exhibit A is “Gosh,” which flips a sound bite from a pioneering U.K. jungle broadcast. But the track isn’t jungle per se, because the head chef of the xx shoots for moods, not rote styles — which is why he’s among pop’s greatest producers. The instrumentals haunt, and so do the vocals. Dancehall star Popcaan floats around a Persuasions sample (“I Know There’s Gonna Be [Good Times]”), and on “Loud Places,” xx crooner Romy Madley Croft pinpoints clubland’s central paradox: “I go to loud places/To search for someone to be quiet with.”