XX - Sunset Minimalism
Electro minimalism applied to melodically pop structures: that's the recipe of the English band that has made the strategic interplay of fullness and emptiness its signature trademark. The soft beats crafted by Jamie XX, the pulsing bass, the guitar sketching light lines, the interplay of male and female vocals have made the trio a benchmark since their debut album. A status confirmed by their subsequent releases…
by
Claudio Lancia
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In The Beginning
Since their earliest days, the xx have carved out their own space at a hypothetical crossroads between Everything But The Girl (Romy Madley Croft's voice sits in a register close to that of Tracey Thorn), the sensuality of early Portishead (like the songs on "Dummy", their songs are perfect bedroom songs), and the sunsets of Café del Mar, for those beats that evoke the elegant chillout music popular on the most crowded Balearic sunset beaches. The story we're about to tell begins in the summer of 2009, when a band from south London found themselves almost by chance on the stage of the Reading And Leeds Festival on a rainy afternoon, presenting their debut album due out shortly after. The quartet had actually already been active for four years, having formed in the corridors of Elliott School, an institution that had previously been home to gifted musicians (Peter Green), electronic music prodigies (Burial, Four Tet, Hot Chip) and world-famous actors (Pierce Brosnan). The band's original core was made up of then-fifteen-year-olds Oliver Sim (vocals and bass) and Romy Madley Croft (vocals and guitar). In 2005, when they started performing, they also recruited guitarist Baria Qureshi, joined a year later by Jamie Smith.
Deeply influenced by American R&B, during their early performances they loved playing covers of old hits, including songs by Aaliyah and Womack & Womack. The first tracks to circulate were recordings posted on their own MySpace page, demos that somehow reached the ears of the people running the independent label Young Turks, with whom they signed a deal. But the first official release to hit the market was a promotional mix put together by Jamie and given away with FACT magazine, distributed in newsagents in July 2009.
Heartbreaking Dance Music
A month later, on 14 August 2009, came the official debut, XX, made with sound engineer Rodaidh McDonald, who would remain a trusted collaborator over the years. XX contains eleven tracks full of pathos, with a delicate, vulnerable climax, the result of sessions recorded in a garage during the night hours, a circumstance that would decisively shape the writing of the songs. From the start there's a clear kinship with Everything But The Girl, Codeine, Mazzy Star and Young Marble Giants, but it won't be long before the band finds the strength to become a new benchmark in its own right.
“Crystalised,” with its light shoegaze echoes, “Basic Space,” “Islands” and “VCR” are the singles pulled from the album, tracks that unmistakably define the band's aesthetic, but already the opening instrumental “Intro” carries all the hallmarks of what would become their unmistakable trademark: an intimate, melancholy minimalism that plays on the strategic use of silence, the sinuous bass, the soft guitar lines drenched in delay and reverb, and the subtle drum-machine work sketching out soft yet decisive beats, all in service of the dual vocals of Romy (sensual and dreamy) and Oliver (warm and deep).
The alternation between emptiness (“Heart Skipped A Beat,” “Fantasy,” the closing “Stars”) and fullness (the sun-drenched electro surges of the sublime “Night Time”), the engaging melodic hooks (“Shelter”) and the occasional detour from the formula (the tremolo on “Infinity”) make the record more dynamic than it might appear on a distracted first listen. The lyrics tell stories of love, desire and loss, and were largely written by Romy and Oliver while they were still minors. It's slow-paced dream-pop, a bare, whispered album that within a few weeks launched xx into orbit, generating enough hype to catapult them from the tiniest pubs straight to arenas around the world (and not just in Europe: they would also appear on the bills of major festivals overseas such as South By Southwest, Coachella and Lollapalooza), with a tour that would run uninterrupted for roughly eighteen months. Arenas, unlike small clubs, partly worked against the English band's sound, built as it is on pauses that can sometimes let the songs go slack: after all, xx's aim was never simply to make people dance, but to keep the emotional charge running high at all times; over time the band would learn to handle larger spaces better, leaning on lighting effects and raising the bpm at certain points in the show.
Mercury Prize And Marketing Strategies
Right in the middle of the tour, at the end of 2009, guitarist Baria Qureshi was pushed out of the band; the others decided to carry on as a trio, finding themselves having to strip the live arrangements of their songs down even further. In 2010 came the first major accolades: the band won the Mercury Prize, the prestigious award given by a jury to the best album released in Britain that year, and picked up three nominations at the Brit Awards, though without winning in any category. It was only at that point that sales of XX, until then actually fairly modest, took off, helped along by some smart marketing moves: thanks to a series of deals struck by the record label, several songs were licensed for use in TV programmes, TV series and advertisements.
On the back of this surge in exposure, those songs ended up in heavy rotation on the in-store playlists of major US chains such as Starbucks and Urban Outfitters. XX eventually went platinum in the UK (totalling nearly 600,000 copies sold) despite lacking the proverbial ultra-pop hit needed to guarantee radio play, and later went gold in the United States (350,000 copies), Germany (100,000 copies), Belgium and Australia. In 2013 the New Musical Express included it among the 500 greatest albums of all time, while Rolling Stone placed it at no. 74 in its special ranking of the greatest debut albums ever made.
Jamie Meets Gil
Thanks to the success he'd earned, Jamie Smith found himself in the best possible position to give a boost to his parallel career as a DJ, producer and remixer, which would very quickly make him one of the most sought-after and celebrated figures in 2010s club culture. The first significant steps were remixes for Florence + The Machine and Adele, but his real coup came in 2011, when, after circulating reworkings of the tracks “NY Is Killing Me” and “I'll Take Care Of You,” he got his hands on the entire album by Gil Scott-Heron (who would pass away just a few months later) “I'm New Here,” remixing it into what would become a new version credited jointly with the American songwriter. We're New Here, released on 21 February, is a uk-garage-flavoured reimagining of most of the final album made by the American poet and master of spoken word. Jamie's distinctive touch comes through strongly here, the architect of a sonic approach that already set him clearly apart, and which in this case manages to hit the mark of bringing Scott-Heron's work up to date, opening it up to new generations.
The following summer Jamie released the single “Far Nearer”/“Beat For” and later produced the title track of Drake's second album, “Take Care” (a duet with Rihanna), remixed Radiohead's “Bloom,” which ended up on the compilation “TKOL RMX 1234567,” and co-produced “When It's All Over,” a track by Alicia Keys from “Girl On Fire.” Jamie thus cemented his worldwide reputation as the DJ/producer du jour, establishing himself as a master mystifier of rhythm, a professional capable of reshaping even ideas with no original electro leanings, often starting from worlds far removed from his own, and turning them into his own personal dub mantras. Jamie xx would soon be universally recognised as one of the leading figures of the post-Dubstep scene, even though the partial kinship with Burial's syncopated beats must be set alongside the pop intimacy typical of xx and the colourful, chamber-electronic textures of someone like Four Tet and many ultra-sensitive American beatmakers.
The Importance Of Silence
On 6 July 2012 xx released “Angels,” an atmospheric, intimate and minimal track that previewed their second official album, Coexist, which arrived in early September. Coexist, influenced as much by electronic scenes as by nu-soul, presents even more relaxed, meditative atmospheres than its predecessor. It's a languid, almost understated work, fragile at times, full of pauses and restarts in which it's often the pauses themselves that become the defining feature, in a process that turns nostalgic yet liberating, simple yet emotionally rich, as best captured in the rhythmic final stretch of “Swept Away,” one of xx's absolute masterpieces, their deep-house anthem par excellence. A pure, deeply melodic record, with a structure that becomes even more fragile and intangible than anything they'd done before. The rhythm tends to stretch out, at times disappearing altogether, and subtle electronic pulses, often borrowed from Dubstep territory, breathe life back into the winding but clear emotional paths.
From the rarefied textures of “Angels” we move to the hypnotic, lulling beats of “Fiction,” the soothing slow-downs of “Try,” the soft uptempo of “Sunset,” the understated comedown of “Unfold,” in a portrait built on imperceptible shades, a rainbow of colours standing out against the night sky. The closing “Our Song” is a romantic unison that returns to the light, suspended atmospheres of “Angels,” closing the circle with surgical precision. Lyrically, the songs are built around relationships coming to an end, dwelling on the different stages of a love story: from the illusion of falling in love to the devastation of the breakup, to the protagonist's subsequent isolation. Titles like “Missing” and “Reunion” seem to want to sum up the feelings evoked in a single word, with light and dark chasing each other, painting the two different perspectives voiced by Romy and Oliver.
Coexist shot straight to no. 1 on the British charts, selling almost 60,000 copies in the week after release. It also topped the charts in Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland and New Zealand, while in the United States it reached as high as no. 5 on the mainstream chart, topping the alternative and independent charts instead. It went gold in Britain, Germany, Canada and Belgium, with sales down compared to the debut, though presumably set to grow over time.
In Colour
Before long xx's music became highly sought after as a sonic backdrop, not just for films and TV series but also for fashion shows (Oliver himself would often walk the runway) and ads. The trio also kept up an intense touring schedule, and the three individual personalities began to carve out their own distinct identities, to the point that it wouldn't be surprising to see them pursuing successful solo careers in a few years' time. For now it's Jamie who stands out the most, releasing his solo debut in June 2015: In Colour. The album also features Romy (vocals on “SeeSaw” and “Loud Places,” though she scatters guitars and vocal samples elsewhere too) and Oliver (vocals on “Stranger In A Room”), making it almost feel like an extra entry in the band's own discography.
From the grandiose breakbeats of opener “Gosh” to the sensual embrace of “Obvs”, from the rhythmic spirals of “Hold Tight” and “The Rest Is Noise” to the total ecstasy of the already-mentioned “SeeSaw” (co-produced with Four Tet), In Colour sketches out the ideal sonic world in which any lover of minimal-pop electronica would want to lose themselves, conceived to show its author's most dynamic side, amid synthetic flourishes and sudden tempo shifts. A harmonic ecstasy drawing on an extremely rich palette of colours, the very one depicted on the cover, through which contemporary electro conventions are rewritten. Jamie, an all-round artist, handles writing, production, recording, mixing and artwork. In the UK alone it will go on to sell a hundred thousand copies, a far from negligible result these days, earning gold certification and landing major nominations at both the Mercury Music Prize and the Grammy Awards, in the “Best Dance/Electronic Album” category.
Trick With Mirrors
With In Colour Jamie Smith nails the album of his life, but its resounding success is also powerful enough to reshape the whole context around the band, turning the XX from a cult band for melancholy electronic-music lovers into one of the most anticipated acts of 2017. And expectations are duly met by I See You, released in January 2017: Jamie's contribution proves decisive in enriching the band's sound, starting with a decisive rhythmic infusion, already very evident from the sampled horns and lush arrangements of opener “Dangerous”, a sudden reversal of the subdued minimalism of “Angels”, which opened Coexist. The rhythms are upbeat and engaging on first single “On Hold”, complete with a sample lifted from an old hit by Daryl Hall & John Oates, and on the following “I Dare You”: this is the main point of departure from the London trio's first two albums.
The other seven tracks stick more closely to the path taken in the past, relying on the moving nakedness of “Performance” and “Test Me” and on the nocturnal midtempo numbers that have built their fortune over time, among which the triptych “Say Something Loving”/“Lips”/“A Violent Noise” stands out, lending depth and quality to the whole album (a little further on, “Replica” and “Brave For You” add further points to the final result).
Confirming their prized mix of electronic programming, simple guitar lines and carefully studied alternation between male and female vocals, the XX renew themselves while staying true to form on I See You, and through their usual highly meticulous production achieve an even more defined identity, without ever betraying themselves. I See You debuts straight at number 2 on the Billboard chart and reaches number one in England, Germany, Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Scotland and across all the American independent and alternative charts. In the UK, within the first six months of release, it totals around sixty thousand copies sold, earning silver certification.
On Tour
The tour supporting the album is a success everywhere and sees the trio headlining some of the biggest festivals in the world: in June alone they play on the bill at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, at Bonnaroo and at Glastonbury, and just a few days later they're one of the main attractions of the 2017 edition of Postepay Sound Rock In Roma, bringing to Italy too (they had already played Milan in winter during the indoor leg of the tour) their play of lights and mirrors that shapes the stage design. Even in the live setting, it's Jamie's figure that towers imperiously, ever more the vital hub of the trio, the grand puppeteer of a sound steered from above, moving between console, synths, drum machines and the very latest electronic gadgetry. Romy Madley Croft brings that voice which has drawn worldwide attention to her as a new Tracey Thorn, and brings that guitar too, which has quickly become an unmistakable trademark; Romy isn't conventionally beautiful, at times she even seems a bit awkward in her movements, but when she performs the languid “Performance” all alone, the crowd watches on moved, in reverent silence, as if in the presence of the greats.
The athletic Oliver Sim is the other voice, warm and deep, but also the group's pulsing bass, ever more present and less icy, thanks to the hundreds of shows racked up over seven years touring the world. The two are genuine: despite the compliments and magazine covers collected just about everywhere, Romy and Oliver hug often, exchange affectionate kisses on the cheek, as if trying to give each other courage before facing, each time, the challenge of such a huge crowd, as if living a dream they never want to wake up from.
The closing of shows on the I See You tour is often entrusted to the endless tenderness of “Angel”, closed out by the unison chant of “Love, Love, Love”. An XX concert confirms today's tendency to tear down barriers between musical genres, adding their own personal dose of intimacy and sensuality to already well-established recipes.
Solo Projects
September 2022 brings Oliver Sim's first solo album, Hideous Bastard, produced by his friend Jamie XX. In more than a few moments, Hideous Bastard doesn't stray too far from the parent band's defining traits, as in the minimalist feel of “Saccharine”, or in the surprising “Unreliable Narrator”, built on a mood that comes close to the best of John Grant. Lyrically, Oliver tackles very personal issues head-on, talking about himself as he never had before. And he does so without hesitation, right from the touching opening track, “Hideous”, in which, after receiving the blessing of Jimmy Somerville, he reveals he contracted HIV at 17, an element that adds to the coming out regarding his gender identity. Topics the London musician could never have addressed so directly within a project shared with others: here, instead, he can afford to show all his raw vulnerability.
But Hideous Bastard is not an album recorded under one's breath, quite the opposite. In the sequence “Romance With A Memory” / “Sensitive Child” / “Never Here” there are beats propping up and driving the songwriting forward, revealing Oliver's more musically outgoing side. Not to mention the remixes in circulation: Midland's hyper-pumped version of “Romance” or the supremely stylish one Jamie XX made for “GMT”. Now that Romy too, after releasing a couple of singles, will surely be heading towards her own debut album, the XX will be ready to return, able to present themselves to the world as a true supergroup made up of three formidable stars.
Another year goes by, and September 2023 brings Romy's solo debut: Mid Air, which contains all the singles doled out sparingly up to that point, except for the first two, “Lifetime” (dating back to 2020) and “Lights Out”. Mid Air is structured with a building, crescendo-like arc. The earliest tracks are the ones most tied to the XX's sonic world, that electronica steeped in melancholy and introversion which inevitably recalls Everything But The Girl, traits found both in the opening pairing “Loveher” / “Weightless” and in the following “The Sea”, with its Balearic, spellbinding touch that will enchant anyone who still has the sunsets of Café del Mar etched into their eyes.
It's the house rhythms imposed in the second half of the album, though, by the already-known “Strong” (featuring Fred Again…) and by the following “Twice” and “Did I”, that make Mid Air stand out strongly as a tribute to club culture with distinct queer undertones. As if it were Romy's own “Confessions On The Dancefloor”. And the seal is set by the euphoric “Enjoy Your Life” (an instant classic somewhere between a “Lady” and a “Get Lucky”, written together with Jamie XX) and “She's On My Mind”, perfect in showing Romy's more playful, fun-loving side, buried for too many years under tons of spleen. Bolstered by the experience gained separately, the next chapter of the story should mark the full trio's return: work on it seems to have already begun...
Nine years after the refined minimalism of “In Colour”, Jamie XX vastly expands his colour palette (though this time, for the cover, he goes for a psychedelic black and white) spinning decades of club culture through the forty-five minutes of In Waves, released in September 2024, blending together an imposing range of styles and subgenres. Material written from scratch, with the nerdy beatmaker's drive of someone who has studied every nook and cranny of dance music in depth (replicating in music the very same approach Quentin Tarantino applies behind the camera), or else borrowed and stitched together using numerous samples. Fragments of music from the past resurface with new life, shining the spotlight again on figures who slipped too soon into obscurity, such as soul singer J.J. Barnes (his “I Just Make Believe”, a 1973 r&b track in perfect Motown style, is the lever from which “Dafodil” develops) or Tina Moore, whose fair 1997 hit “Never Gonna Let You Go” here serves as the opening gambit for the whole album. When it comes to relying on samples, comparison with the Australian Avalanches is one of the first things that comes to mind, and Jamie XX didn't think twice about inviting them to work together on “All You Children”, a band that has built an entire career, a reason for living, on the potential of the sample. But, as we were saying, In Waves encompasses a whole range of styles, spanning from deep house (“Wanna” is just the first of a series of spot-on masterstrokes), perfect for picturing those Balearic sunsets capable of sealing an unforgettable day, to the breakbeats that defined early UK Garage (“Treat Each Other Right”, or how to hold together wild pitch shifts without the track losing any solidity), which perfectly convey that feeling of fulfilment you get inside a club, when the kaleidoscope of sounds wraps around you and makes you feel like the centre of the universe. Inside In Waves there's Ibiza, Miami, Berlin, Detroit, London, Chicago, but what's depicted here isn't a dancefloor falling apart, leaving nothing but rubble on the ground, as happens for instance in the work of Burial; no, here the dancefloor is alive and well, and on top of it a damn urge to dance takes shape. Sure, in reality the world of clubs isn't going through the best moment in its history, but Jamie XX wants his teenage dreams to stay alive, and to make that possible he crafts a vibrant, joyous mood, dense with groove, giving everything of himself to provide good reasons for people to come back and fill endless nights once more. Jamie lives for this, you can feel it clearly: it's his life, his work, his mission.
On the sumptuous “Dafodil” he brings together, around the same idea, the experience of Panda Bear and two rising stars such as London rapper John Glacier (if you don't know her yet, you'll be hearing a lot about her very soon) and Los Angeles singer and cellist Kelsey Lu (one album and already plenty of collaborations under her belt), different generations joined harmoniously in pursuit of a common goal. For Robyn, Jamie stitches together a multicoloured little outfit titled “Life”, a firework display packed with a thousand small touches, including a flamenco guitar that you can just about make out. Jamie says he finished “Life” right after getting back from a night spent at the decks at Pacha: having heard it, it's easy to believe him. The long, structured “Breather” fuses three parts together, moving from Berlin techno to ambient, all the way to four-on-the-floor house, all within the same track, with an impeccable attention to sound throughout. “Still Summer” is another highlight, good for the dancefloor, good for a sunset aperitivo, good for a listen at home or to accompany a long car ride, one of the many faces of this euphoric prism that is In Waves. In there is also Jamie's own story, reuniting with Romy and Oliver Sim for “Waited All Night”, as if to soothe the wait for the next project under the XX name. Not that they'd ever really lost touch, mind you: Jamie has stood firmly by both of them even through their recent solo debuts, right while - over the last four years - he used every scrap of free time to finish In Waves. The material doesn't end with the twelve tracks of the base tracklist: the deluxe edition of the vinyl version comes with a bonus 12-inch featuring five further songs. Besides three singles doled out sparingly over the past two years (“It's So Good”, “Let's Do It Again” and “Kill Dem”), there are also two previously unreleased tracks, “F U” featuring Erykah Badu on vocals, and the gentler “Do Something”. Both seem to have been captured live (you can hear the crowd chattering) in the middle of a boiler room. In Waves doesn't represent the state of the art in electronic music, it isn't as avant-garde as other contemporary electro works, there's nothing here looking toward the future or reworking the post-rave scene, but it delivers an unstoppable shot of adrenaline. The party atmosphere is underlined by tracks like “Baddy On The Floor”, which features another major guest spot, Honey Dijon. The album also has the merit of being inherently accessible, a trait that will help widen its author's audience, thanks to songs able to work perfectly well on a dancefloor, on TikTok, or on any Spotify-built playlist. After a work of this calibre, the line of admirers waiting outside Jamie XX's door can only grow longer, and among them the number of musicians wanting to collaborate with him will increase enormously. A success that was foretold, and thoroughly deserved.
Ride the wave of great music
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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
XX on OndaRock
Discography
| XX: | ||
| XX (Young Turks, 2009) | 8 |  |
| Coexist (Young Turks, 2012) | 7.5 | |
| I See You (Young Turks, 2017) | 7 | |
| Jamie XX: | ||
| We're New Here (with Gil Scott-Heron, Young Turks, 2011) | 7 | |
| In Colour (Young Turks, 2015) | 8.5 | |
| In Waves (Young, 2024) | 8 | |
| Oliver Sim: | ||
| Hideous Bastard (Young, 2022) | 7 | |
| Romy: | ||
| Mid Air (Young, 2023) | 7 |
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