When Romy Madley Croft started DJing as a seventeen-year-old Londoner, she was quickly inducted into Soho’s gay club scene, becoming a regular at a basement spot called The Ghetto. “I was quite happy to be getting let in at that age!” she says with a chuckle. “At some point, I was asked by the manager if I wanted to DJ, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how!’” So, she taught herself: “I burned a bunch of CDs and had so much fun playing really big pop and classic dance anthems. I just loved that I could connect with people without talking to them.”
Circa 2006, The Ghetto was a bustling dive that specialised in ‘trashy’ alt pop and cheap drinks. “It had a big impact on me in terms of meeting people that I felt like I could be myself around,” says Madley Croft. “I could really explore my sexuality and my identity and find other people to look up to – even though I was very shy. I ended up meeting some of my best friends there, who are still my best friends.”
Strolling through the city centre after a recent gig at a fundraiser and “feeling nostalgic,” it struck her to try and find The Ghetto, or at least figure out where it would have been. As it happened, the location seems to have been absorbed into Tottenham Court Road tube. “I realised that it’s a train station now. It’s long gone,” she says. A guitarist, vocalist, producer, and DJ, Madley Croft has seen the demise of too many a cherished fixture of London nightlife. “It’s just part of that constant reminder that clubs and bars can be these precious, important social spaces that completely disappear.”
The musician spent the late aughts as frontwoman of the xx, a gothic, electro-rock band that was famed for its sparse, bass-forward productions: songs like ‘Islands’, ‘Crystalised’ and ‘Intro’. The trio – which also includes Oliver Sim (on bass and vocals) and Jamie Smith (responsible for beats and production) – began writing and rehearsing together as secondary school friends in south-west London just over two decades ago, and are now all established soloists in their own right. Madley Croft is “grateful to still be making music with them, and for people to still be getting excited about it,” but also: “I’m really grateful for the time we spent apart because I think it helped me figure out who I am as an individual.”
Romy’s gleeful pop-dance output feels a world apart from this more moody beginning, yet it is recognisably part of the same universe. She cites making “uplifting lesbian pop music” as the primary goal of her current project. In composing Mid Air, her first diaristic solo album – named for the feeling of being “weightless on a dancefloor and lost in the moment” – Madley Croft found herself returning to thoughts about her teenage self, and the types of song she deserved to grow up with. “I wanted to try and create music that would have meant a lot to me then. Because when I was younger, songs about a woman loving another woman were more like … acoustic ballads. Not the most fun or cool songs. And I have always been obsessed with big, anthemic pop music and pop-dance, songs that really bring a room together.”
The record is dedicated to the photographer Vic Lentaigne, Madley Croft’s frequent muse (a dynamic in their relationship that is very much mutual – Lentaigne has lensed her for this cover and many more) and wife of three years, “Which feels crazy to say! We’ve known each other since I was 19 and she was 20: that’s when we first met,” she explains. “We had a relationship then, but it was quite short and it didn’t work out. I didn’t really think we would ever see each other again.” The pair reconnected again over a decade later, through Whippets FC, the five-a-side football team they both began playing for.
Madley Croft recalls returning home one summer after a spell of touring, when the Men’s World Cup was fomenting a widespread football fever. “I came home to London and a lot of my friends were getting together to watch it; reminiscing about how we all played football when we were younger and missing that. I was a bit nervous, but my friends were like, ‘You’re joining.’” She looks back on this serendipity as a ‘sliding door’ moment. “We became friends and kind of just ended up getting back together.” Mid Air is in large part inspired by Lentaigne and the euphoria of their relationship: “The feelings I was having in re-falling in love, trying to navigate that, and wanting to celebrate that.”
Today, Madley Croft lives in East Sussex with Lentaigne and their three pets: Zola the cat, Mouse the sighthound, and the newest addition – Pacha the Ibizan rescue (“She’s kind of quite wild, but she’s lovely”) named, of course, for the infamous beachside club.
“I just love being able to go for longer walks with our dogs. It’s very peaceful – a really nice contrast to all the time I’ve been spending in clubs and venues. I’ve spent a lot of my life touring and not being able to keep animals. When I met my wife, she already had Mouse and Zola, so it was lovely to be able to have an instant family together in that way. All of them give me this wonderful feeling of rooting and structure.”
The need for contrast is a recurring theme in our conversation, which turns to the question of exciting, inspiring music of late. Alongside MUNA, a group whom she has long admired for their politics “as well as just being positive queer role models in pop music,” she praises Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and Billie Eilish (“‘Lunch’ is a revelation of a song”). “I’ve just been loving the presence of queer pop music this year, especially more lesbian representation and more visibility for queer women in pop. That has felt very exciting to me.”
Madley Croft also cites Adrienne Lenker’s Bright Future as a record she’s had on repeat recently. Lenker’s appeal, for Madley Croft, is “her storytelling.” “She always takes me to a different place, and I always find it very beautiful,” she says. “Oliver and I were talking about this yesterday when we were catching up, and he said that it makes sense to him that I’d be making all this dance music but listening to acoustic stuff in between.”
While Madley Croft occasionally DJed after playing sets with the xx, the reception wasn’t always the warmest. “Because I was playing these big pop songs, and the music that the xx played live was so different, I sometimes had these weird exchanges with people where they’d be like, ‘Is this ironic? Are you taking the piss?’ It threw me off a bit.”
The musician still identifies as an introvert and a wallflower, personality archetypes that seem somewhat antithetical to her chosen profession – but she’s feeling a lot more comfortable in her own shoes these days. “When I was touring with the xx I used to crave tailoring,” she tells me. “I felt like I needed to put on some sort of armour: a blazer or something that could give me a bit of a silhouette on stage, or shoes with some height.” In other words, anything that might provide a confidence boost.
Now in her mid-thirties, Madley Croft finds herself drawn towards “genderless clothes” or those “with a masculine edge,” designers like Martine Rose, whose brand began as a menswear label and evolved with a deep affection for the nightlife and community culture found in particular London locales. Madley Croft appreciates the designer’s references to “sportswear and streetwear,” electing in her day-to-day life to wear “casual things that feel special.”
She doesn’t crave her onstage “armour” anymore. For the Mid Air era and beyond, “I really wanted to do the opposite and wear trainers, a t-shirt, and jeans; go on stage as I am in my personal life as a kind of experiment,” she says, audibly proud of its results. “I didn’t feel that need for the transition.”
