Jamie xx goes dancing with the deaf. 

In a couple of weeks, Jamie xx releases a new 12″ single, Girl / Sleep Sound, and the flip now has an accompanying video, directed by Sofia Mattioli. The clip features Mattioli dancing to the track with regulars at the Manchester Deaf Centre, with the deaf dancers following her movements and responding to the track’s vibrations.

Mattioli’s rationale behind the concept is below, and makes for interesting reading:

I was on a train listening to music, getting deep into it, and this girl started staring at me. After a while I took my headphones off and she came up to me, started signing and then wrote me a note to say that she was deaf but could almost feel the music by my movement.

The relationship between silence and music is a big part of what I am trying to express with my work. The first kid in the video, Archie, was bliss—all of them were amazing. I hope this is a project I can develop further.

Girl / Sleep Sound drops on May 5; both tracks are available to stream in full. ‘Sleep Sound’ was recently thrown to the baying critics in FACT Singles Club, where responses ranged from merry (“a big snuggly duvet of a track”) to sniffy (“even the chopped vocals sound bored”).