- Anthemic house music inspired by the movement of everyday life.
- After releasing last year's indisputable house anthem "For You," the first single from I. JORDAN's Ninja Tune debut signaled a new, perhaps calmer direction. The wistful electric piano and cooing vocals of "And Groove" showcased a different side of the UK producer. But now that the full EP, Watch Out!, is here, this assumption falls to pieces. The opening song "Only Said Enough" is about as big and brash as I. JORDAN gets.
The tracks here, like the opener, take a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" structural approach, replicating "For You"'s euphoric onslaught of looping samples and unrelenting drums. This time around, Jordan takes inspiration from early '90s UK hardcore, with frenetic vocals and Reese basslines on "Only Said Enough," or wailing sirens and heart-palpitating chord stabs on the title track. "Watch Out!" takes paranoid sounds and makes them sound ecstatic, like an old darkcore tune turned inside out.
There are other surprises, like the full-on techno of "You Can't Expect The Cars To Stop If You Haven't Pressed The Button," which has none of the giddy vocals of their other work. But even this straight-up track is idiosyncratic, made from samples of Dublin traffic crossing signals that give it a gritty texture and strange melodic cadence. That leaves "Feierabend," a track named after the German term for the after-work feeling, when you're finished with your day and the nighttime awaits. It's blissful and high-energy, but there's also a sense of routine to its happy-go-lucky melody, bringing to mind an image of sped-up office drones making their rounds waiting to get off the job.
In interviews around this new release, Jordan has stressed the feeling of "constant motion" that defines their life and the way they make music. Some tracks were composed on train journeys, others influenced by their regular commute to work in London. It encompasses not only the freedom and abandon of rave but also the hubbub and commotion of everyday life, especially life before the pandemic made traveling and commuting harder.
Though it was only one of many such cases, it was a cruel irony that Jordan's breakthrough moment came at the beginning of the pandemic, that one of 2020's most talked-about tracks wouldn't get played on dance floors for at least another year to come. Watch Out!, in its themes of all sorts of movement, from dancing to the work commute to simply crossing the street, brings home why For You made such an impact even without the dance floor. Jordan's music is so alive, so kinetic, that it can't help but bring joy and vibrancy—and movement—to any setting you play it in.
Update, June 28th, 2023: This piece has been updated with I. JORDAN's new artist name.
Tracklist01. Only Said Enough
02. Watch Out!
03. You Can't Expect The Cars To Stop If You Haven't Pressed The Button
04. Feierabend
05. And Groove