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Jack Garratt announces new album of “dance music for people who don’t want to go out”
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 7 February 2020
Jack Garratt has announced his return with his first new music since 2016. He has released three tracks from his upcoming new album, ‘Love, Death & Dancing’, including the official first single ‘Time’.
Explaining the lengthy gap between his first and second albums, Garratt echoes comments made by a number of returning artists recently – including Porter Robinson and Best Coast’s Bethany Consentino – about dealing with depression and anxiety in the wake of a period of career success.
“I was in what should have been this huge celebratory moment”, he says of the time after the release of his 2016 debut album ‘Phase’. “I’m 24, 25, my album has not only sold but sold well, globally, the tours were selling out, I was getting all these accolades and awards – I should have felt comfortable, at the very least. And instead I was scared and alone, and desperate for affection. I’d realised that a lot of the pillars of affection were hollow; they weren’t real”.
This wasn’t helped by a lack of confidence in his own abilities. He says of that first LP: “[It’s] a record full of beautiful metaphor that doesn’t really say anything. I was scared to actually say something real; I didn’t think people wanted to hear it. That’s why my production on that record is so busy, so saturated”.
“I didn’t think I was a good producer”, he adds, “so I did lots of tricks to make people think: ‘He’s good’. Same with the lyrics, with the melodies, all of it, it was just me on a face-value level effectively going: ‘This is good because it’s impressive, not because it’s actually good'”.
Eventually overcoming his creative block, he began working on new music with producer Jacknife Lee, which became the new album. It is, he says, “written from the point of view of someone who has a functioning sadness, who has had his day-to-day depressions and anxieties that have influenced the decisions he’s made”.
“The album is about that functionality, that day-to-day battle, conversation, tug of war”, he goes on. “We’re making a film at the moment, to go with the whole album. The premise of it is that it’s me in the back rooms of my mental health, on my own, interpreting the album. The one thing it needs to do is for the very last shot to be exactly the same as the opening shot. Because this battle in my head is cyclical, infinite; it’s a line of consistency, a time loop that’s just going round and round and round”.
While depression may still be part of his life, one thing that has changed is how he feels about what he has created. He concludes: “I think this is the first time I’ve felt proud of the songs I’ve made. I wrote this album as someone – and for anyone – who likes dancing but doesn’t necessarily want to go out on a Saturday. It’s dance music for people who don’t want to go out! And that’s the music that I love: music that doesn’t care if you’re standing up or sitting down. It’s going to give it to you either way”.
‘Love, Death & Dancing’ will be out on 29 May. He’ll also be touring the UK later this month as well as playing two newly announced dates at EartH in London on 9-10 Mar. Watch the video for ‘Time’ here:
