xREL.v3

Artist:   The XX
Title:
Label:    Young Turks
Genre:    Indie
Bitrate:  169kbit av.
Time:     00:38:35
Size:     49.15 mb
Rip Date: 2009-08-17
Str Date: 2009-08-17

01. Intro                                                         2:07
02. VCR                                                           2:57
03. Crystalised                                                   3:22
04. Islands                                                       2:40
05. Heart Skipped A Beat                                          4:02
06. Fantasy                                                       2:38
07. Shelter                                                       4:30
08. Basic Space                                                   3:08
09. Infinity                                                      5:13
10. Night Time                                                    3:36
11. Stars                                                         4:22

Release Notes:

Striving for mood is futile. If your intentions are in any way
transparent, you ?re going to fail. Contrive downbeat miserablism in
your music and it ?ll come off as studied, inauthentic, indulgent. Aim
for the stars with the word  ?epic?in the back of your mind and you ?ve
made the last Maccabees album. Lots of artists that shoot for
?atmospheric?end up with overwrought pretension, style over substance.
What The XX have feels chanced upon, and precious.

There ?s a singular bleakness to their debut album, which sounds like
it ?s been made by moonlight by a grim team of introverts, half-drunk
and lonely. Listening to it with the level of attention it demands
gives you a sickly jealous feeling at the intimacy, like reading other
people ?s love letters. It ?s a waste of time looking for big hooks or
moments of release, but absorbed properly this becomes quietly
transcendent. Somehow, its songs are welcoming despite their
insularity.

There are four people in the band but this is a couple ?s album. The
twin vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim trade understated rich
vowels, their dialogue the rope that binds 11 malnourished songs
together. Romy carries all the drama with her tiny tics and unavoidably
Great Voice. Oliver ?s gentle croon is dangerously close to the vegan
sex therapist vibe of Fujiya & Miyagi, but mostly agreeable. They are
insanely well-matched, complimenting and answering one another as they
saunter around the bare minimum backing of their band.

The obvious reference point for this quiet, understated style is Young
Marble Giants, but The XX have a couple of other tricks up their
sleeve. The ace is the dreamy, ultra-reverbed guitars of Romy and Baria
Quershi, nailed for perfect pathos every time we hear them. Jamie
Smith ?s sampler and drum work adds tiny lines of detail and makes
tantalising occasional use of arse-tickling sub-bass rumbles. Every
instrument is played with a glorious unselfishness, an element of
healthy disinterest.

Misleadingly bold instrumental opener 'Intro' introduces The XX ?s
somnabulant groove with an ominous, Knife-like organ thrum and
cloudsurfing guitars. There are background hints of broken electric
squall on  ?Night Time?where suddenly fluent guitars probe an ascending
staircase of notes. These guitars are universally lovely, with riffs
and licks just thoughtful enough to show the beautiful tone isn't being
milked or overly relied upon. The much touted R&B influence only really
materialises on  ?Basic Space ? ?s busy drum programming. Instead, The XX
sound closer to (dirty word alert) trip hop, especially on the
elegiacally tasteful of  ?Shelter? This album will be soundtracking a
lot of bad, earnest sex.

?Infinity?feels like a reprise of places we've already seen, but the
crystalline cracks marking time are a typically inspired addition. The
yearning guitars finally reach long-threatened Chris Isaak  ?Wicked
Game?territory before a thrilling build to a level of loudness
unmatched elsewhere on the album.  ?Shelter?is a centrepiece of sorts,
with Romy ?s voice more exposed than at any other point.  ?Maybe I had
said something that was wrong / can I make it better with the lights
turned off??she sighs, like a wounded goth.

The music isn ?t matched by equally adept lyrics. The frank first words
on the album come on  ?VCR? "You used to have all the answers" which is
immediately undermined by the emotional dead-end of the following line:
"and you, you still have them too". There ?s a similarly uninspired
summer / winter pairing later in the song, but the occasional
clumsiness with words is countered by the utterly beguiling mix of
voices over their skeletal backing. Mostly, it's tremendously touching.
Songs are relentlessly second person with everything addressed to an
unknowable 'you'. There ?s a sense of overwhelming infatuation during
?Basic Space? "I think I'm losing where you end and I begin" confesses
Romy before unfurling a suffocating manifesto of "setting us in stone /
piece by piece before I'm alone / airtight before we break / keep it
in, keep us safe."

All too predictably, my best listen of XX to date came last week at
midnight on a dark Devon road, with only the occasional twin glare of
white in the other lane punctuating a journey into nothingness. I was
immersed and quiet, and that ?s when this collection of miniature songs
excels. They ?re not magnificently written, with unspeakably beautiful
melodies, and virtuoso instrumental performances, but they have an
intangible spook. The XX know when to tense, when to relax. It ?s
instinctive. It could be because they ?ve known each other for years, it
could be luck that this combination of four people is somehow tuned to
one another and can create something so clear, so fluent. It ?s
pointless speculating about it. It ?s here and it ?s almost perfect.
sire*hush*ai