Deep Joy - EP

“I believe dancing is the perfect antidote to sadness,” Jax Jones told listeners to his House Work Radio show on Apple Music a couple of weeks before dropping this EP. “To help you guys snap out of the sad times and go crazy on the dance floor—that’s what Deep Joy is all about.” Sure enough, this set of pulse-thumping house and dance-pop showcases the Londoner’s mastery of uplifting and unshakable melodies. But Jones also knows that you often have to travel from the lows to reach the highs, and there’s an absorbing sense of humanity to the songs. Crowd-rousing electro-pop on the surface, “Crystallise” reveals—via vocalist Jem Cooke—some of the emotional turbulence Jones and his wife felt having suffered a miscarriage before the birth of their daughter. On “You Broke My Heart Again,” meanwhile, Jones reworks New Mexico producer Teqkoi’s lo-fi electric ballad into effervescent beats and melodies that cradle beguilingly fragile and lovelorn vocals. In its search for euphoria, this is an EP that reflects tough times as much as it salves them.