Filtered through the best moments of 90s electronica, tracks like Gosh and I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) mean In Colour will likely end up on many a best-of list by year end.
Getting Jamie xx to analyse his achievements - including two albums providing ghostly blueprints for The xx, a Gil Scott-Heron remix album, and singles with Drake, Rihanna and Alicia Keys - shows why many journalists have complained of his curt answers when it comes to interviews. Today is no different. "It's been great, I've had a really good year, really enjoyed it," he says, trailing off with a lengthy silence.
Perhaps he's just busy. Jamie xx will take a break from recording with The xx to help headline next year's new Echo Festival, formerly McLaren Falls, a two-day event that's moving from the Bay of Plenty to Auckland. He'll perform a DJ set alongside headliners Disclosure and Flaming Lips at Vector Arena.
Though he promises to play songs from In Colour, Jamie xx admits the album was so tough to finish he hasn't listened to it since it came out.
"It's nice to have that album done and out of my hands. It took a bit to finish it. It took me so long," he says. The reason is that Jamie xx is a self-confessed perfectionist. He loves coming up with ideas, but hates finishing them. Some of the songs on In Colour are more than four years old, he admits.
"The creating is easy and fun but I find it difficult to finish things. I just really enjoy the beginning moments of creating something rather than the end," he says.
Then comes a rare moment of insight: "The spontaneity that comes out of making an initial idea dies away quite quickly, and then a lot of it is about experimenting and working on structure, and that can become hard and you can lose direction."
He only made the decision to compile his unreleased material as a full-length album last year. "After that, it was finishing, and filling in the gaps," he says.
Now that it's out, he's turning his attention to The xx's long-awaited third album. Recorded in stints "all over the world" over the past three years, the trio are hunkered down in their London studio putting on the finishing touches.
Jamie xx promises the shackles that meant 2012's Coexist was a quality facsimile of their 2009 debut are off and anything now goes.
"I think the band has broken down a little bit.
"We used to have unspoken rules about what makes an xx song. Now we're open to making the best song possible without any ego at all."
Despite today's short interview and brief answers, Jamie xx promises to bring the noise when he's here in January.
"I'll be playing a lot of my own stuff, and new bits that I've been making, and other people's tunes. Just trying to play a party."
In other words, he'll let the music do the talking.
Who: Jamie xx
Where and when: Echo Festival, Vector Arena, January 11-12
Debut album: In Colour, out now
