I. JORDAN

I Am Jordan (Ninja Tune)

As a producer and DJ, I. Jordan sits in dance music’s strange unmapped space between the under and overground, where sounds which feel most at home in dark, pokey basements can float up to the literal top of the pop charts. Jordan themselves hasn’t done this yet, but much of I.Jordan’s debut album I Am Jordan cribs from commercial dance of the last three or more decades and its myriad innovations. And other parts of it are take-no-prisoners Eurotechno whose euphoria is achieved through serious bosh.

Butterlick, on the first half of the album, can be described thus: featuring New York-based Sister Zo, it concludes a three-track run of teamups with trans artists (as is I.Jordan). Single Real Hot N Naughty sees guest vocalist Felix Mufti (best known as an actor on Sex Education) contribute preposterous rapped vocals over pneumatic pop-house; on The Countdown, Scottish producer Tahhliah contributes… something to the Buckfast-chugging splice of trance, hardcore and bounce.

Collectively a tribute to the wider queer community in which I.Jordan has found a home, the nine solo productions on the album can go just as hard, and recall an unlikely span of club styles. Round N Round, also a single, has the basslines of, well, bassline (as in the Yorkshire-minted mutation of garage) and the chopped-up vocal samples of 90s proto-big beat.

NOEL GARDNER