Introducing: The XX

Name: The XX
From: London, England
Story: Shy kids' teenage kicks
Sound: R&Dream-pop

When The XX recently delivered their blog-beloved take on Womack & Womack’s late-’80s hit ballad "Teardrops," the punchline wasn’t in the cover —it’s tender, hushed, and wholly earnest— but in the history: when the original came out, The XX’s members weren’t even born.

A crew of 19-year-old South Londoners, The XX make stark, stately, synthy slowcore influenced by minimalist R&B production. Meaning: they may cover Aaliyah, but they sound more like mid-’80s dream-pop moodists This Mortal Coil. Not that they’ve heard them.

“I’d never even heard of the Cocteau Twins until, like, a year ago,” says vocalist/guitarist Romy Madley Croft, who fronts the band with bassist/vocalist Oliver Sim. “Somebody said to me: ‘you should really listen to this band, you remind me of them’. And I listened and thought it was so beautiful. I haven’t made it to This Mortal Coil, yet.”

Whilst The XX’s debut disc, XX, earns comparisons to ’80s reductionists (Young Marble Giants is another popular one), some UK press pundits have painted their members as "hoodied youths" hanging outside council estates. Really, they're a group of shy, introverted friends from the Elliott School; an institution whose musical alumni includes Hot Chip, Burial, and the Four Tet/Fridge/Adem family.

Like Fridge, who started making albums when they were in school, The XX were signed by XL Recordings when they were all 18. The songs on XX are, then, some of the first they ever wrote. "I think of a song like 'VCR,'" Madley Croft offers, "I wrote that in my bedroom when I was 16 years old!”

• Listen: The XX, "Crystalised"
• Listen: The XX, "Basic Space"

Photo © Owen Richards