Putney is obviously the place to be as two consecutive acts on my chart come from the mean streets of South West London. In fact they even went to the same school as Hot Chip. Like Hot Chip the band has two vocalists, Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft. Both sing on all tracks apart from the instrumental Intro. The hushed male female vocal combination lends a certain sexual tension to songs. Probably individually they would not be the greatest vocalists, but they fit well together. Sim's voice in particular reminds me of 3D of Massive Attack.
At the time of recording the album, the band was a four piece, but keyboardist/guitarist Baria Qureshi has since departed, citing exhaustion. Sim plays bass and Madley-Croft plays guitar, but the real heart of the band is producer and beat master, Jamie Smith. Much has been made of the fact that the band were just 20 years of age when making the album, but the fact that the producer is the same age is all the more remarkable.
Music technology geeks will be interested to learn that Smith uses an Akai MPC . These instruments are popular in Hip-Hop, which is an influence on the XX's sound. Seeing as the band don't have a conventional drummer, Smith is mainly involved in the production of beats. However the MPC has sampling, sequencing, storage and sound manipulation facilities, so it is a useful tool in music production.
The only slight criticism I would have of the XX music is that while it is moody and magnificent, there is not a great deal of variation over the course of the album so you have to be in the right mood for the moodiness.
Recommended Track: Heart Skipped a Beat
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