never heard of them? Actually, you have - Neil McCormick on the mysterious Mercury favourites, the xx, who are taking the music world by stealth not storm.
When the Mercury Prize was announced this week, the xx were quickly installed as bookies favourites. Actually, they were favourites before the shortlist was even announced, topping every critic’s list of predictions.
Romy Madley Croft of the xx in concert at iTunes, The Roundhouse, London this month
There are more established names up for the prize (Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal, Corinne Bailey Rae) but the xx have been taking the music world by stealth not storm, creeping up on the slow lane with one of the most original yet seductively approachable debut albums in recent memory. It never even broke into the UK top thirty (peaking at number 31, although that is likely to change now) but it has already quietly notched up over 150,000 British sales, with another 179,000 in America (where it just scraped into the top 100, at number 92).
Quietly is the operative word. Everything about the xx is low key and understated. Even their name is typed in lower case. Indeed, so minimalistic is the xx’s ethos that when keyboard player Baria Qureshi left right before a gig, they opted not to replace her, instead boiling down their already basic arrangements to accommodate a three piece of drums, bass and guitar.
What is truly remarkable is that they manage to create something unique with such a standard rock line-up.
I saw the xx at the weekend, at Latitude festival. It was strange to watch them in that context, performing to a packed marquee, the stage so dark you could barely make out the unsmiling trio dressed in black. Front duo of guitarist Romy Madley Croft and bassist Oliver Sim sing in soft, hushed voices, tossing lyrics between them like conspirators finishing each others sentences, occasionally joining together in unison mumbles. It makes for an odd but effective boy-girl dynamic, like eavesdropping a lovers’ secret conversation. Accompaniment is little more than sparse electronic beats played live by Jamie Smith, hitting pads with nimble fingers, and some indefinable, ambient sounds interacting with Sim’s sub bass frequencies and Croft’s slinky, finger-picked guitar figures. She never plays anything as obvious as a chord, preferring isolated notes and little motifs. Solos are an absolute no-no, though crowd favourite ’VCR’ is spiced up with a bit of xylophone. Songs appear to have been deconstructed to essential parts: ghostly melody lines, shadowy rhythm, a skeleton hook, yet out of this emerges something completely recognisable as pop music. At Latitude, the xx gently wooed a crowd several thousand strong, who hand-clapped with the timing of professional percussionists and sang softly along, as if filling the spaces in the music.
Their self-produced album (entitled simply ’xx’) garnered universal critical acclaim on its release in August 2009 (by Young Turk, a division of the hip XL label). With the three band members just turning 20, it was treated as a slinky, sensual evocation of teenage desire, conjuring up a kind of somnambulant night-time mood of coital yearning. Croft, however, seemed horrified when a journalist asserted during an interview that most of their songs were about sex. “We were writing these songs when we were 17,” she retorted. “I can honestly say I’ve never thought this is about my sex life.”
Croft and Sim have been friends since they were toddlers. Smith (and the now departed Qureshi) were recruited five years ago when they all attended Elliot school, a large comprehensive in Putney, south London that has (through the auspices of a progressive music department) nurtured a remarkable number of left-field musicians. Its alumni include cerebral groovers Hot Chip, abstract electronic artist Four Tet, shadowy dubstep producer Burial and folktronic singer-songwriter Adem. They are all musically adventurous, yet also have a quality of polite restraint.
The xx look like an indie band but when they started making music they were in thrall to the stripped back inventiveness of a strain of American urban r’n’b pioneered by producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes, who would construct hits from percussive beats, handclaps, odd samples and vocal harmonies. The xx often play covers of r’n’b hits, including Womack & Womack’s ’Teardrops’ and Aaliyah’s ’Hot Like Fire’. But there is a very British, industrial aspect to their arrangements, metallic inflections that recall new wave producer Martin Hannett’s dub influenced post-punk, the rusty edges he brought to Joy Division, but done with the lightest of brush strokes, the static of a Television in the background, or a passing train rattling the windows. It is like urban music reinterpreted by the Cocteau Twins, all shadows and whispers instead of bling and bombast. It’s a very modern mix of apparently incompatible sources. “I think a lot of it has to do with the ’shuffle’ function of our music players,” Sim has claimed.
“Listening to some Billie Holiday, which turns into some spoken word piece, followed up by Beyonce.”
We often hear the phrase ’less is more’ but, as music critic Mark Edwards recently pointed out, what is not so frequently acknowledged is that ’less is more difficult’. Since Phil Spector first conjured up his wall of sound and the Beatles began throwing everything and the kitchen sink into their recordings, the history of pop has tended towards the principle that bigger is better. You can hide a multitude of musical sins on a multi-track, from sloppy playing to dull ideas, but when you strip everything back to basics what is left has to be perfection itself. Quiet records that conquer the charts are the exception rather than the norm. The xx have drawn comparison to the glacial dub of Young Marble Giants 1980 classic ’Colossal Youth’ and the eerie spaciousness of early Portishead. The band members, however, are so young they are still catching up with their alleged influences. “I’d never even heard of the Cocteau Twins until a year ago,” Croft recently admitted.
Even if you think you haven’t heard the xx, you probably have. Their enigmatic instrumental ’Intro’ has become a TV favourite, cropping up as the backdrop to everything from the BBC’s General Election coverage to sports highlights and episodes of thriller series like ’Cold Case’ and ’Law & Order’.
Other tracks have been soundbeds to youth programmes like Misfits and E20. Slowly, stealthily, the xx are becoming ubiquitous, garnering over half a million sales around the world without ever having anything as vulgar as a hit. The Mercury Prize judges might as well just surrender, give them their award now and save us all a lot of unnecessary pontification. ( telegraph.co.uk )
When the Mercury Prize was announced this week, the xx were quickly installed as bookies favourites. Actually, they were favourites before the shortlist was even announced, topping every critic’s list of predictions.
Romy Madley Croft of the xx in concert at iTunes, The Roundhouse, London this month
There are more established names up for the prize (Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal, Corinne Bailey Rae) but the xx have been taking the music world by stealth not storm, creeping up on the slow lane with one of the most original yet seductively approachable debut albums in recent memory. It never even broke into the UK top thirty (peaking at number 31, although that is likely to change now) but it has already quietly notched up over 150,000 British sales, with another 179,000 in America (where it just scraped into the top 100, at number 92).
Quietly is the operative word. Everything about the xx is low key and understated. Even their name is typed in lower case. Indeed, so minimalistic is the xx’s ethos that when keyboard player Baria Qureshi left right before a gig, they opted not to replace her, instead boiling down their already basic arrangements to accommodate a three piece of drums, bass and guitar.
What is truly remarkable is that they manage to create something unique with such a standard rock line-up.
I saw the xx at the weekend, at Latitude festival. It was strange to watch them in that context, performing to a packed marquee, the stage so dark you could barely make out the unsmiling trio dressed in black. Front duo of guitarist Romy Madley Croft and bassist Oliver Sim sing in soft, hushed voices, tossing lyrics between them like conspirators finishing each others sentences, occasionally joining together in unison mumbles. It makes for an odd but effective boy-girl dynamic, like eavesdropping a lovers’ secret conversation. Accompaniment is little more than sparse electronic beats played live by Jamie Smith, hitting pads with nimble fingers, and some indefinable, ambient sounds interacting with Sim’s sub bass frequencies and Croft’s slinky, finger-picked guitar figures. She never plays anything as obvious as a chord, preferring isolated notes and little motifs. Solos are an absolute no-no, though crowd favourite ’VCR’ is spiced up with a bit of xylophone. Songs appear to have been deconstructed to essential parts: ghostly melody lines, shadowy rhythm, a skeleton hook, yet out of this emerges something completely recognisable as pop music. At Latitude, the xx gently wooed a crowd several thousand strong, who hand-clapped with the timing of professional percussionists and sang softly along, as if filling the spaces in the music.
Their self-produced album (entitled simply ’xx’) garnered universal critical acclaim on its release in August 2009 (by Young Turk, a division of the hip XL label). With the three band members just turning 20, it was treated as a slinky, sensual evocation of teenage desire, conjuring up a kind of somnambulant night-time mood of coital yearning. Croft, however, seemed horrified when a journalist asserted during an interview that most of their songs were about sex. “We were writing these songs when we were 17,” she retorted. “I can honestly say I’ve never thought this is about my sex life.”
Croft and Sim have been friends since they were toddlers. Smith (and the now departed Qureshi) were recruited five years ago when they all attended Elliot school, a large comprehensive in Putney, south London that has (through the auspices of a progressive music department) nurtured a remarkable number of left-field musicians. Its alumni include cerebral groovers Hot Chip, abstract electronic artist Four Tet, shadowy dubstep producer Burial and folktronic singer-songwriter Adem. They are all musically adventurous, yet also have a quality of polite restraint.
The xx look like an indie band but when they started making music they were in thrall to the stripped back inventiveness of a strain of American urban r’n’b pioneered by producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes, who would construct hits from percussive beats, handclaps, odd samples and vocal harmonies. The xx often play covers of r’n’b hits, including Womack & Womack’s ’Teardrops’ and Aaliyah’s ’Hot Like Fire’. But there is a very British, industrial aspect to their arrangements, metallic inflections that recall new wave producer Martin Hannett’s dub influenced post-punk, the rusty edges he brought to Joy Division, but done with the lightest of brush strokes, the static of a Television in the background, or a passing train rattling the windows. It is like urban music reinterpreted by the Cocteau Twins, all shadows and whispers instead of bling and bombast. It’s a very modern mix of apparently incompatible sources. “I think a lot of it has to do with the ’shuffle’ function of our music players,” Sim has claimed.
“Listening to some Billie Holiday, which turns into some spoken word piece, followed up by Beyonce.”
We often hear the phrase ’less is more’ but, as music critic Mark Edwards recently pointed out, what is not so frequently acknowledged is that ’less is more difficult’. Since Phil Spector first conjured up his wall of sound and the Beatles began throwing everything and the kitchen sink into their recordings, the history of pop has tended towards the principle that bigger is better. You can hide a multitude of musical sins on a multi-track, from sloppy playing to dull ideas, but when you strip everything back to basics what is left has to be perfection itself. Quiet records that conquer the charts are the exception rather than the norm. The xx have drawn comparison to the glacial dub of Young Marble Giants 1980 classic ’Colossal Youth’ and the eerie spaciousness of early Portishead. The band members, however, are so young they are still catching up with their alleged influences. “I’d never even heard of the Cocteau Twins until a year ago,” Croft recently admitted.
Even if you think you haven’t heard the xx, you probably have. Their enigmatic instrumental ’Intro’ has become a TV favourite, cropping up as the backdrop to everything from the BBC’s General Election coverage to sports highlights and episodes of thriller series like ’Cold Case’ and ’Law & Order’.
Other tracks have been soundbeds to youth programmes like Misfits and E20. Slowly, stealthily, the xx are becoming ubiquitous, garnering over half a million sales around the world without ever having anything as vulgar as a hit. The Mercury Prize judges might as well just surrender, give them their award now and save us all a lot of unnecessary pontification. ( telegraph.co.uk )
Sometimes it really is the quiet ones you have to watch.
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