Jack Garratt

“Joy as an act of resistance”. That phrase has been coursing around Jack Garratt’s head recently. That state of mind has birthed a markedly new chapter for his sound, one that’s positive, urgent, and vibrant, bursting with colour and fun. Released 3 months into the global pandemic, Garratt’s last album Love, Death & Dancingwasn’t plain sailing. His diary, previously filled with tour dates and live shows, remained completely blank. With no one to play it live to, the album didn’t get the traction he’d hoped. “For me, it bred a lot of frustration,” he says. “I couldn’t tour the record, which is half of its journey, really.” In his personal life he was going through divorce.Rather than submitting to the “pit of anxiousness and frustration” that threatened to swallow him, Garratt opted for making lemonade from the lemons that life handed him and got back into the studio. The resulting sound that came out was technicoloured, joyful and celebratory. There’s a whole heartbreak album on the way,he promises, “but I needed a moment of reclamation and self-acceptance –I had to do this purely for myself.”Renowned for a hard-to-pigeonhole sound that spans R&B and electro-pop (2016’s Phase) and big singer-songwriter anthems (Love, Death & Dancing),the Walthamstow-based multi-instrumentalist has previously labelled his work as “dance music for people who don’t want to go out”. He’d thought of himself as one of those club-avoidant people, too. But now, with the world reopened and a newfound gratitudefor his friends, family and life in general, Garratt has had to reconsider that idea, with pub dancefloors now his favourite spot. “Now I’m in a place where I’m making dance music for me, and I’m desperate to go back out.”