Few artists can successfully get away with changing their aesthetic stance from one album to next, especially when their first release became popular precisely because of the specific nature of its sound. While Jam City is undoubtedly one of the most gifted producers working in the UK today, it still seemed a stretch to believe that he was truly capable of dropping the digital sheen of cybernetic masterpiece Classical Curves in favour of something totally different on the album's sequel. Classical Curves was perhaps the most important club album of 2012, and it inspired so much new music in the years since... How could he possibly move away from that and not face critical backlash? Incredibly, Jam City didn't just manage to escape the shift unscathed - he also successfully created another exceptional standalone release in Dream A Garden. As suggested, the album couldn't be further from the glossiness of its predecessor. The digital textures are gone, the glowing surfaces melted away, and instead foggy songs evocative of hypnagogic pop provide the dominant structure. Lead single Unhappy may feature trippy beats, but it is effectively a gorgeous, misty piece of singer-songwriting that - unheard of in Jam City's previous output - is vocal-led. While there were forewarnings of Jam City's aesthetic change (his Earthly mixes, for instance), nothing prepared anyone for these sounds. They're alien and strange, even on a Night Slugs label noted for its oddness. What is interesting is that the album is thematically actually similar to Classical Curves. Both are about the problems of corporate cyberspace and the impact that virtual isolation has on the psyche. However, where Classical Curves arguably dealt with these themes by exaggerating them sonically, Dream A Garden more explicitly explores them lyrically. Tracks like Crisis and Black Friday are relentlessly bleak, with any emotional resonance in the vocals or song structures overwhelmed by the swampy dystopian production. If this is hypnagogic pop, as several reviewers have claimed, then it is far darker, more disturbing and more futuristic than any of the other music placed under the umbrella of that nostalgic genre. Jam City's second full-length is proof that an artist can continue to study familiar themes and retain compositional integrity while taking on new and increasingly odd sounds and styles. It is one of 2015's must-listens.
