You know those people who make you want to be a better person? The ones who make you think things like “I’m going to start writing thank you notes” and “How does one volunteer?”

This Jamie xx album makes me want to be a better music fan.

In Colour makes me wish I knew more about the electronic genres he’s citing/mining/channeling, so I can stop using EDM as a catch-all term. These songs feel elemental, like Jamie’s taken the basic ingredients of the music he grew up with and combined the best bits with a ruthless and discerning efficiency. I don’t know which ingredients are which — what synth sounds come from house vs. techno vs. drum and bass vs. something else on this hilariously detailed Wikipedia page — but for the first time I can remember, I want to know.

I’ve mostly been listening while running. In fact, I’ve made it the soundtrack to more than one family run, and it’s been a big hit. (OK, so Baby YHT completely zones out when she’s zooming along with us in the jogging stroller, and she ends up in this glazed-over limbo between waking and sleeping that makes her look a little like a White Walker from Game of Thrones, but I’m going to go ahead and assume she’s loving it.)

I don’t own a ton of electronic music on vinyl — any, really, come to think of it — but this strikes me as a wonderful starting point. A chance to hit the reset button and resolve to truly understand a type of music that’s been at the periphery of my listening ever since I watched Trainspotting with my sister and heard “Born Slippy (Nuxx).” I still can’t believe I was allowed to watch that movie. It came out when I was 13, for crying out loud. My family is getting together this weekend, and I’m totally finding out who let this happen.

Listen to/watch standout In Colour track “Gosh” below.

Jamie xx — “Gosh” [Spotify/iTunes]