The XX

Yeah, I'll be seeing them in a c.200 capacity venue - just the job.

Yeah that M Ward song with Lucinda Williams from his last album popped into my mind when listening to a couple of these tracks - not really the arrangement but the combination of voices.

The other thing this reminded me of was LOW - who evidently aren't as fashionable a touchstone as, I dunno, dubstep or whatever.

The dubstep mentions don't really make any sense to me; it's minimalist indie with some deep bass and pop touches.

Perhaps Colder crossed with Insides to be really precise about it.

thats a mouth-watering description! i've just been listening to it, a bit low-key to come to any decisoin about it yet. dont hear too much Insides though (and i LOVE insides, no breathy bjorkesque vocals and head spinning dreampop guitar)

The xx?

More like the zz, right?

Wrong, this is a pretty nice album; quiet, contemplative, competent and simple. It won't be my favorite of the year but I'm glad I grabbed it as it's provides a nice contrast to the varying flavors of bombast I've been wallowing in (mostly Bat For Lashes and Telefon Tel Aviv).

10-04 Manchester, England - Deaf Institute

...must resist obvious joke...

dan, you're not listening to the first telefon tel aviv album then? 'cause that is seriously the most soothing album of all-time.

I'm listening to the last Telefon Tel Aviv album; I'll get to the first one eventually.

it's incredible but very different from the stuff with vocals (which i haven't listened to very much)

The other thing this reminded me of was LOW

Maybe some Bizarro World version of Low where they don't harmonise, and Alan can't sing...

Still feel like the grinch on this - it's ok when he's keeping shtum, but the songs and arrangements are so pedestrian. And the whole "they're so clever, just 19" stuff is bollocks - there's rafts of artists who've done *amazing* stuff when in the flush of youth.

yeah, but few of them have quite coincided with being feted by the uk indie press in this decade, i think is a part of the thing, there

I can't believe somebody already made the "The ZZ" joke :'(

It had to be said.

She is a much better singer than he is but I really, really, really dig their New Order-influenced minimalism.

i always know i can count on dan not to be all "hes not a bad singer because he sounds just like [bad singer from another indie band]"

Not sure how that follows...?

i dont understand it either! im agreeing with dan

Oh right, I had missed the 'not' in your first post and I'm all "Wait, what?"

I'm usually skeptical about bands citing influences 'from pixies to mariah carey blah blah blah', but this is really good

yeah digging the tautness of it

On the homepage of Cokemachineglow.com, the subtitle for their review of this record reads: "RIYL: divisiveness, Hegelian dialectics, vague hostility, red eye Greyhound trips."

^^ Winning subtitle

having avoided their recorded music, will be seeing these guys live tomorrow, yay for free festival tickets! i'm sure i'll be able to conjure a suitably damning/awed verdict.

Jeff Stelling gives them the thumbs up, 'Interesting harmonies. The song was a bit dull, I thought, but there's something there I quite like'.

when or how did jeff stelling talk about this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/06/recrod-doctor-jeff-stelling

Recrod?

jeff stelling's words pretty much sum up my feelings about what i just saw

OK, I saw this band at Leeds Festival this year having heard three of their songs once each. They were my second favourite after Radiohead and I'm loving the album, especially Islands. Much better than Florence and the Machine, who're apparently a shoo-in for the Mercury. I hope The xx's album at least gets a nomination for next year's prize.

these guys are good music for when I don't feel like hearing music at all. I mean this as a compliment

^^^ OTM. I've actually only found myself putting this on when I'm not in the mood for anything else at all, and just want something blank to hang there.

Good way of putting it.

ok having listened to the album a couple of times, i really dislike their aesthetic and their songs, sorry

it's the kind of knowing understatement in lieu of actual songwriting or developed narrative which is both cowardly and uninteresting

'infinity' is ok in a bland ham-sandwich way

so is the rest of the album, and boy they do bland soooo good.

different shades of grey: there is tedious bland and there is interesting bland. the xx belong to the latter.

looks like we have a new release date here in America, according to Amazon:

This title will be released on October 6, 2009, on Beggars Xl Recording.

i get the aaliyah thing inasmuch as I can imagine liking her for the same reasons you might like Italians do it better ie detached vocals adrift in beatscapes. Saw them at a festival with really bad sound and thought their whole schtick was The Birthday Party via JAMC (that teardrops cover sounded like Red Right Hand drowning in reverb) and was at first disappointed at the reality. But then I watched the video for Crystalised based on the fact that I saw a photo of the guy and they've made him look like he just wandered out of the Warehouse or something, he's got this streetsmart hot boy swagger thing, and I reallly like his vocals and how they just sit really unhurriedly in those lethargic grooves. I could kinda take or leave the girl, and she's a bit random indie chick sounding and her haircut is hella retarded. Still, I'll be over this in like a week and by then this'll be on a car ad.

or as this utube comment puts it:

TasselToff (9 hours ago) 0 Reply
I love Oliver Sim <3 He's sooooo hot!!!!
And the music is amazing, I love how chilled it is, yet soo meaningful!!! Dutty!

hmm...this is one of those ILX things that sort of fascinate me, like i am totally mystified by the love for this.

Freak.

haha yeah i guess.

they sound like a local band.

xxp I have a very opposite reaction, I think the chick sounds totally cool and the dude is the most dead-sounding person on Earth

"dude you should really come with us friday, our graphic design guy ryan has this band with his girlfriend, they are really cool, really unique, they do a lot cool stuff that mixes rock and more electronica, i totally think you'd dig it, it's really different"

Yeah but your local band would just be doing bad Garbage impressions.

haha Ned otm

hmmm i might take that actually

like i liked what everyone was saying on this thread, and minimalism is dope usually

but i guess to me good minimalism sort of uses the space to suggest something "outside" of what's there, like some sort of magic happens, and it sort of hypnotizes you...but this just seems like...modern rock songs that are unfinished or something.

anyway y'all are digging it and i'm just being a dick so i am over and out.

yeah there's definitely an unfinished-ness about it, that in some songs is just fine or unnoticeable and in others a bit of a drag. unrelatedly they all look really strange and not-how-i-would've-expected, in press photos atleast. where did they put all that attitude when they record this darling little album?