Jam City: Dream a Garden review – a departure from Jack Latham’s glossy debut

Without reading anything about it, you may not immediately recognise this second album by Jam City, aka London producer Jack Latham, as a protest record. A departure from the glossy, alien-sounding club music of his debut, it’s a slow, fragmentary work taking cues from drone and post-punk, with Latham’s vocals half-buried in layers of sound. But the clues are there in track titles – Unhappy and Black Friday hint at a critique of neoliberalism – and the texture of the music. Unlike earlier Jam City releases, this one aims to create friction, to disrupt the party, even if it doesn’t force its message down your throat.