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The xx Files

Ever find yourself intrigued by the murmurings of a couple near you in a restaurant? Are they in love? Fighting? Reconciling? It’s wrong to listen yet you’re drawn to the intimacy of lovers engaged in a clandestine tête-à-tête.

That’s the effect of the songs of the xx (their debut, xx, is out digitally now). The South London boys and girls of this foursome burrow deep within a minimal electronic atmosphere of stark beauty. Think New Order slowed down and obsessed by love’s ambiguities. Co-vocalists Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim trade lines in a sensual dialogue between sexes. “Can I make it better with the lights turned on?” Croft coos on the sultry “Shelter.“ “Don’t think that I’m pushing you away, when you’re the one that I’ve kept closest,” Sim counters on the sinister “Crystalised.”

The xx thrive inside those tense contradictions — attraction/repulsion, honesty/deceit, the nagging peccadilloes that drive desire and irritation. Unlike “slow-core” bands like Mazzy Star or Cowboy Junkies, the music never feels like an afterthought — it’s a supple conduit through which we edge closer to the conversation instead of asking to be moved to another table.


xx is available digitally now and will be released on CD October 6 from Young Turks/XL Records.