Jamie XX Boiler Room DJ Set at Red Bull Music Academy x Boiler Room in Miami

•  5 April 2013

The xx have written a song ‘Together’ for Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby. It’ll be on the soundtrack, out 6/7th May

•  4 April 2013

THURSDAY 4TH APRIL

“We’ve always sung together,” says Sim, thinking back. “When we were 15 and we started doing covers, it was pretty embarrassing to just start singing in front of your best friend. So we came to an agreement that we would sing together. And then we worked up the confidence to sing by ourselves, even if it was just for a verse.”

After they’d been playing for some time, Sim and Madley-Croft recruited another long time friend, Jamie Smith, to produce their debut album. Smith acts as the counterbalance in The xx, adding darker textures to Sim and Madley-Croft’s minimal pop songs. As Sim explains, Smith is governed by a completely different set of rules, creating spacious beds for Madley-Croft’s laconic guitar lines.

“Jamie has such a different mind to me and Romy. I listen to words and songwriting, whereas Jamie can listen to a song 20 times and not hear a single lyric. He can’t sing a verse to any of our songs,” he laughs. “Jamie understands the logistics of music – chord progressions and arranging songs. I find confidence with him there.”

Once they had established themselves as a three-piece in 2009, The xx recorded their debut album in a garage at the back of their record label, Young Turks, in West London. Being able to record in their own studio gave them space from the outside world – the same space that is evident in tracks like Crystallized, which combine Smith’s electronic beats with sparse vocals and melodic guitar lines.

Each evening, the threesome would arrive at the studio in Notting Hill and work well into the night. “We didn’t need money from our label to record, so we had more time with it,” says Sim. “We weren’t really working to any expectations so if we had failed, it wouldn’t have been such a huge thing for the record label. There was no clock ticking.”

Their first album xx went on to win the Mercury Prize for best British album in 2010 and received three Brit Award nominations. After playing some of the world’s largest music festivals including Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, Sim, Smith and Madley-Croft returned to the studio in 2011 to record their sophomore album, Coexist.

Moving into a new studio in East London, they again separated themselves from the outside world and recaptured the mood from their debut. “The second time around, there were expectations,” recalls Sim. “We have an audience now and if we wanted to play a shitty pub to test out songs, they would end up on YouTube or something.”

It’s a world away from where it all began. But in some ways, not all that much has changed. More than 20 years after meeting in kindergarten, Sim and Madley-Croft still live just a few minutes walk away from each other in South London. There’s tenderness in the way he describes their relationship – a softness that extends into all of their recordings.

Before he hangs up to unpack some boxes in his new apartment, Sim admits that they were never trying to make it big. “You know, it came from the most unambitious place, all of this,” he says. “We were just on holiday and we got really obsessed with music. The best thing is that it’s even better now…with just the three of us.”

http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/arts-and-entertainment/article/xx-oliver-sim

•  3 April 2013

Written by Marc Zanotti on 2nd April, 2013

The xx have landed in Australia for their national headlining tour behind their award-winning2012 album, Coexist. Having survived the expectations set by their heavily hyped and highly praised 2009 debut, the young English trio continue to grow into the underlying maturity of their music.

With Coexist, The xx proceeded to convey a myriad of ideas and feelings with minimal fuss, and plenty of fuzz. The album’s opening track and lead single Angels is a prime example of their brevity and directness, with its heartfelt lyrics and finely plucked guitar strings striking a chord in Australian fans, coming in at number 19 on triple j’s Hottest 100 for 2012.

Before the tour began, The xx’s endearing vocalist Romy Madley Croft kindly postponed catching up on some sleep to discuss the complexity of emotions that can co-exist within a simple lyric, finding inspiration from and delivering inspiration to hip hop, and why The xx chose Australian act Jagwar Ma to be the support act for their current tour.

Music Feeds: You’ve said that your favourite lyrics are ones that convey complex ideas in a simple manner. Where on The xx’s latest album Coexist do you feel you’ve best achieved this?

Romy Madley Croft: Oh (laughs), tricky. I guess, I’m not too sure exactly if I can say that, but I think the lyrics that I was most proud of when I wrote them was for Angels.

And, let me see my lyrics here, hold on – “And everyday I’m learning about you the things that no one else sees”, I think is probably my favourite just because it is very simple and I think it sums up that feeling when you’re just getting to know someone in a relationship.

Obviously there’s a lot of feelings going on there and it’s a special time. That simple line kind of summed it up for me when I wrote it. I knew it meant a lot more than just that.

That was a tough question (laughs).

MF: Do you think that a simple lyric is a delicate lyric?

RMC: Not sometimes – I think it can be a strong one but I think it’s just about summarising all of your feelings, trying to capture it perfectly in a few words. That says a lot more sometimes than writing a whole paragraph or talking about loads of things…

MF: Angels is an interesting example because in the wrong hands those kind of lyrics could become cliché but they are extremely effective in the framework of the song. What’s more important to you – the positioning of a lyric or the way it is delivered?

RMC: Probably the delivery, I guess. There’s so many times a lyric can be considered a bit cheesy or a bit cliché but sometimes if it’s in the right context and in the right song with the right singer, it can make a lot of sense.

This is a really bad example but in England there’s The X Factor – a girl who covers a Cher song [Believe], which, you know, is Cher normally singing in auto-tune and people probably don’t like that song very much, but this girl covered it and turned it into a very heartfelt piano song. And it was a massive hit in England and with people all over the Internet.

So I found that pretty interesting, in the sense that you can really make a song your own and really change the perception of it.

MF: Is The xx’s often minimal and stripped back sound an attempt to offset lyrical material that might otherwise be heavy-handed if it were sung over fuller instrumentation?

RMC: Yeah, I think it’s based around that. Oliver (Sim) and I don’t have the loudest voices. When we first started out we weren’t the most confident singers and I think we weren’t really the best at playing our instruments. So the songs, essentially, are pretty simple because we couldn’t play our instruments…

But it’s those kinds of limitations that shaped the way we sound. We always had the idea that we wanted to play everything live so when we did want to play live it was quite easy. That’s why some of the guitar parts, for me, aren’t that complicated because I couldn’t sing or play guitar very well when I wrote them, especially on the first album [xx, 2009].

As time’s gone on it’s been a bit more of a conscious decision to play a certain way or because we like the sound. I’ve enjoyed singing a bit more now because we’re playing live a lot more … but I think [our sound has developed from] kind of happy accidents.

MF: Have the songs from Coexist taken on different meanings over time?

RMC: Yeah, I think they definitely have. Some of these songs we wrote when we were 16 and are still singing now. Just to keep it interesting for ourselves, when you perform live your mind wanders to sort of fit them into your new situations.

Some of them become old memories and you relive that when you play them live. But I’m not sick of it yet, which I’m grateful for.

MF: Speaking before on the delivery of lyrics, do you find you’ll emphasise different moments of a song during a live performance depending on your mood?

RMC: When we’ve played a certain set a few times ’round you get a feeling of what kind of emotion you’re trying to get from that song. We change our songs around a lot now, so when you come see us live they’re not going to sound exactly the same as the album. That changes from tour to tour.

So if you’ve seen us a few times in the same year it’s going to be a different interpretation of the set. It depends on the mood, I guess. If you go onto the stage feeling a certain way … the songs that are reflecting the way you’re feeling at the time might become the ones you put yourself into more.

MF: Do you find that the maturity of The xx’s sounds places an unfair expectation of maturity on you, given that you’re only 23 years old?

RMC: I suppose. Personally, I’ve always felt a little bit older than I am. When I listen back to some of the first album [and] think about how old I was, I guess you think, “I was only 18. That was quite an intense feeling,” but at the time it felt completely normal.

So I love writing about love and heavier subjects … but I’ve definitely had people – my aunty said to me that she read the lyrics to the album not that long ago, and wished she’d asked if I was alright at the time. (Chuckles) But we’re just fans of love songs, really.

MF: So you see the difference in age between the first album and Coexist?

RMC: Yeah, I do, definitely. I do think we’ve done a lot of growing up in the time between them. Withxx, we wrote it from nearly 16 and 19. I can see it myself, all the different times in that album. And withCoexist, it was written in quite a specific amount of time … and I can remember that time bit more clearly from start to finish where with xx it was kind of just my whole teenage years.

MF: You do you look for inspiration when it comes to simple but effective lyrics?

RMC: Someone I’ve always really looked up to and admired is Everything But The Girl and Tracey Thorn. I recently read her autobiography, and it was really interesting and inspiring to read that, but there are some songs of theirs that I think just capture… Missing, being their biggest song ever… It’s just very simple lyrics and a lot of people can interpret it in different ways.

I think that’s what makes that song so massive, is that it’s just so simple that people can just sing that chorus and add all their personal meanings to it. It’s not like a story exactly about [one thing]. It doesn’t feel like she’s painting a picture … I mean, it does, but you can really imagine yourself in her situation, I think.

MF: On Coexist, The xx combined musical influences from pop, R&B and hip hop. Are there any rappers you look to for inspiration when it comes to writing lyrics?

RMC: Oliver and I are big fans of Drake. He and Jamie (Smith) have been in touch and have been working on some stuff together. And Drake told Jamie that we’ve been an influence on him and that was really a very special thing to hear… especially [given] how massive he is … It’s nice that he’s so in touch with his emotions, I think.

MF: The xx have been working on some fun covers recently, such as I Miss You by Beyoncé. Would you consider covering a hip hop track?

RMC: Maybe, I don’t know. We’re really open to doing all different types of songs. As long as, to me, it really just comes down to lyrics when we’re covering a song, because the lyrics and melody is about all I like to keep. We’re not going to take the riff, or whatever it is – just take the lyrics and shape a whole new thing around it, really. So I’d definitely be open to something else.

MF: Reportedly The xx handpicked Australian act Jagwar Ma as the support act for the band’s Australian tour. Is that correct?

RMC: Yeah, we did. We were keen to ask someone from Australia to support us and we looked at their music and we’re really into it, so we’re excited to have them. Last time we had Flume with us – that was a lot of fun.

It’s important to us to recognise where we are and it’s fun to meet new people. It’d be nice to get to know them on tour and hear their music live.

MF: Was the difference in musical style between yourselves and Jagwar Ma part of the reason The xx selected Jagwar Ma as your support act?

RMC: Yeah, definitely. I think we’ve realised that that’s ok, to have a different [style of band]. We’ve been touring with two producers from Barcelona… They’re essentially house DJs and producers. It’s definitely a lot more upbeat and I can imagine they have a similar sort of live style as Jagwar Ma.

And that was really fun because the crowd was quite energetic and in quite a up-for-it mood by the time we came on. And our sets have gotten a little more upbeat now so it doesn’t seem to out of context.

The xx are currently touring Australia and you can still grab tickets to some of their upcoming shows –
tickets and more show information available from Handsome Tours.

Thursday, 4th April – SOLD OUT
Festival Hall, Melbourne

Friday, 5th April – NEW SHOW ADDED
Festival Hall, Melbourne

Saturday, 6th April – SOLD OUT
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Sunday, 7th April – SOLD OUT
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Tuesday, 9th April 
Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane

http://musicfeeds.com.au/features/the-xx-drake-told-jamie-weve-been-an-influence-on-him/

•  2 April 2013

•  2 April 2013

•  28 March 2013

•  27 March 2013

74/100

The xx
XL/Young Turks, 2009

Pop was in a maximalist phase, all pummeling Eurodance beats and rococo production flourishes, when these London indie rockers arrived with a radically different musical message: less can be much, much more. Songs like “Crystallized” and “Islands” are masterpieces of minimalism – songs built around simple chord progressions, delicate guitar and keyboard ostinatos, the gentle rub of Romy Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim’s his-and-hers croons. It’s beautiful music, an exercise in restraint, in the artful use of space and silence. It’s also funky (check the bonus track cover of Aaliyah’s “Hot Like Fire”) and, against all odds, sexy – booty call music for the blog-rock set.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-100-greatest-debut-albums-of-all-time-20130322/xx-19691231

•  26 March 2013

•  22 March 2013

http://boilerroom.tv/live

•  21 March 2013

PUBLISHED 21 Mar 2013

WORDS BY Lauren Martin

With the success of their second album Coexist the xx have solidified themselves as one of the most original and celebrated bands in the UK. Meanwhile, percussionist / producer Jamie Smith enjoys a healthy solo career as a producer in his own right.

After the warm reception to his collaborative album with Gil Scott Heron, We’re New Here, the acclaimed ‘Far Nearer’ and a litany of remixes, this year will see a new, and as yet untitled, EP from Smith, which he touches upon in our quick chat ahead of his DJ set at Young Turks’ showcase at WMC in Miami this Friday. First things first though: the xx have a very busy summer ahead. The band’s noted ability to inject their live shows with a tangible sense of gravitas will be put to the test at Night + Day – their very own festival split over Berlin and Lisbon in May and London in June – and in their residency at the Manchester International Festival in July. Though keen to preserve elements of surprise about the residency until the event begins, the xx will be playing no less than 18 shows in different, secret locations within Manchester, further testing the band’s ability to utilise the space and form of their immediate surroundings to present their live show as a malleable yet deeply emotive experience.

How are you Jamie?

“Yeah I’m good, really happy to be back in London.”

The xx are just back from spending some time in the USA, right?

“Yeah, We’ve just come back from being on tour in the States – Texas, Florida, going to a lot of weird little places that bands don’t usually go. It was really great for us.”

You’ve got your first festival Night + Day beginning this summer. What is your role with the festival? Is it strictly curatorial, or are you very hands on with the full organisation of it?

“Yeah we’re doing pretty much everything – from the line-up and location right down to what smaller events will be going on during the festival onsite, the staging, the layout, how everything looks…. we basically get to control every little aspect of it, which is pretty fun.  I mean, we have other people putting our ideas into practise on ground level, but it’s very much the xx’s festival, y’know? It’s nice to be the boss for once.”

What made you decide to host a festival in the first place?

“Well, we’ve played a lot of festivals now but we rarely get to have a proper festival experience with it. It’s often just – get there, play, leave, then onto the next one. I mean don’t get me wrong. We’ve been to festivals before as punters and loved it – like Glastonbury – but as a performer it’s always a bit rushed and we don’t get to get into the vibe of it, or we don’t really ‘get’ what the festival is trying to do, so we decided the best way to have this experience is just to do it ourselves.”

How did you go about curating the line-up for Night + Day?

“Everyone who’s playing Night + Day are either people we know and love, having met along our own path as a band, or people that we feel will fit really well with those we’re already familiar with. Location wise, we wanted to have a festival experience that wasn’t your average, three day-long, trekking through muddy fields to see bands you’re not really that fussed about vibe. Night + Day is very weighted on the atmosphere. Hopefully the people who will come to Night + Day will be fans of ours, and will end up fans of who we’ve selected to play.”

It’s interesting that you’ve chosen to host Night + Day in three different cities – London, Berlin and Lisbon. Why do so? What is it about Berlin and Lisbon that appealed to you?

“Well having it be in more than one place was our initial idea. It was kind of the big sell of it. I wanted it to be in more than one place in Europe so that people from all over could travel to somewhere near them, and not have to just miss out because everything is always in London – or at least it’s seen to be that way. Part of the process was down to the fact that we always have an amazing time in Berlin and the fans are great, but with Lisbon it was more that people don’t really do that much in Portugal music wise. Bands don’t go there too often but whenever we’ve gone to Lisbon the response has been really great.”

What are the locations themselves like?

“In Berlin it’s hosted in an abandoned amusement park. All the rides are still there but nothing’s open, so it’s quite an eerie place to be. It’s been used for film sets before but never for a music event, so it’ll definitely be a first for us. In Lisbon it’s hosted in a big castle right on the coast. It’s magical, a really beautiful place, and a totally different vibe from Berlin. I guess we’re not trying to make it a festival so much. We’re trying not to use the word ‘festival’ at all really. Its more of an experience.  One day, start to finish, quite laid back, but with lots of quality people to see. If it’s successful I’d hope that we can do it again and again.”

The setting seem to be chosen for their drama and atmosphere primarily. I’ve heard that the xx only play at night, is that true?

“Yeah, we actually have it in our contract that we have to play either at sunset or after dark, ha.”

That seems very apt. Is this an attitude towards staging live performances that will carry through to the presentation of Night + Day?

“I’d like to think we as a band are pretty attuned to that sort of thing – how our music comes across to people in a live setting – so it’s definitely going to inform how we’re gonna do Night + Day and how the line-up will be planned out. You’ll have to wait and see how though…”

On a different note for upcoming live shows, the xx are playing 18 performances for the Manchester International Festival this summer. How did that come to be?

“Well our manager and a few guys from the label went to Manchester International Festival last year for the Bjork show and they just said it was all amazing, so we got in touch with the organisers and they were keen to have us. They actually have a lot of grants and investors for M.I.F. so they’ve got room to do lots of amazing things, and the residency sounded brilliant to us; the idea that the surroundings change each time, and how the music relates to the surroundings informs your experience of the live show. It seems very meticulously curated and that appeals to us as a band. The performance for us is really important.”

You definitely seem, to paraphrase you, very attuned to the performative element of your live shows. How do you feel your new tour will demonstrate a growth in the band in this respect?

“From touring the last album we realised that we have to constantly re-touch and add to our live show to stay creative. We’re always doing new sound checks and practising, trying to figure out ways to re-work our songs so that there’s elements of surprise and so on. Its constantly changing, so hopefully if someone comes to see us twice in a year they’ll see a quite different set each time. On the visual side of things we’re also working out how to step it up again from the last tour. We’ve got Coachella coming up and a bunch of other really big festival slots too, so it’s quite a pressure to do well. We played at Coachella for the first time a few years ago to the most people we’d ever played to at the time, and it was very, very scary, but also really life-affirming.”

http://www.factmag.com/2013/03/21/a-lot-of-popular-electronic-music-is-pretty-soulless-a-catch-up-with-jamie-xx-on-his-new-ep-curating-the-night-day-festival-and-more/

•  21 March 2013

While the Young Turks party itself might be invite-only, NTS will be broadcasting it live for the rest of the world.

Even for those who happen to be in Miami it would likely be a big ask to secure tickets to the Beach House event, so it’s thanks to NTS host (and Boiler Room man) Nic Tasker that we’re going to be able to hear this rare set. Jamie xx and John Talabot will be playing back to back for two hours, and Tasker will be broadcasting it from NTSlive.co.uk at 12am-2am GMT or 8pm EST.

If you actually are in Miami that weekend and want a chance to catch the duo in person, then Young Turks are throwing another party at The Bardot on Friday March 22. Jamie xx and John Talabot will be joined by Pional and Nic Tasker with special guest Oneman providing an extra reason to secure yourself tickets.

Those of you stranded in London don’t dispair though, NTS are having their 2nd birthday and it’s just around the corner. On April 20 the radio station will be having Jamie 3:26, Maxmillion Dunbar, Jon Rust, Dobie, Moxie, Martelo, Charlie Bones, Judah, Nic Tasker and Brian Morrison drop special sets in celebration. For more information and tickets go here.

http://www.factmag.com/2013/03/20/stream-jamie-xx-john-talabot-back-to-back-in-miami-on-sunday-march-24/

•  20 March 2013

BY JANA ROOSE | 20 MARCH 2013

It’s 10pm in London when we chat to one third of The XX, Oliver Sim, whose voice makes us melt like paddlepops in the heat of summer.

Hi Oliver, how are you?
Not too bad thanks, how are you?

Really well. So where are you at the moment?
I am in my flat, at home in London which is an absolute luxury.

What did you get up to today?
While I’m home right now I’m just doing the most mundane stuff. I bought my first flat last year and I’ve only spent, you know, about a month in it since the beginning of last year so I’m just trying to make a home and trying to write and see my friends and family while I have the chance.

Have you managed to unpack everything?
I have three more boxes! The home stretch.

When was the first time you sang in front of someone?
I sang in front of Romy, I guess I was about 15 and it was a big deal. I was so nervous and terrified. We weren’t even singing alone, it was a compromise because neither of us wanted to sing in front of the other so we agreed to sing at the same time, and from doing that I got the confidence to sing alone.

Do you remember the first song you sang together?
I don’t know, we were covering Pixies songs and then pop like Sugarbabes, so it was somewhere in between those two songs I guess.

You guys are a vocal guy/girl duo, who is your favourite vocal duo?
Marvin Gaye’s collaborations with Tammi Terrell are amazing.

What kind of kids were you and Romy?
We weren’t like unpopular, but we weren’t really popular, we just sort of kept to ourselves. I’ve never had a tonne of friends, but the ones I did have I was very close with. We always knew where one another was. And I’ve got the coolest parents ever, so I know I was personally very happy hanging out with my parents quite a lot as well.

What are your parents like?
They’re music lovers, they’ve never tried it themselves, but they are actual music lovers. There’s always been good music playing in my house. My mum and dad have different tastes, but they really loved Talking Heads, especially The Cure and bands like The Durutti Column and Everything But The Girl, music that I now consider my favourite bands.

What was your first day job?
I was working in a sports café in a tennis club, and I was making coffee for pretty fat, older rich women who would come and play like ten minutes tennis and then drink about six coffees and it was the most boring thing. It just wasn’t very busy, so the days just seemed very long. I’m very grateful to be here doing something I love for a job.

You guys wear black a lot – was this a group decision or it just happens?
My teenage years were kind of a descent, my wardrobe got a lot darker. I don’t think I was trying to Matrix it up or be a bit goth and make a statement about what was going on inside. There are lots of people in my family that wear black and I’ve always thought it’s quite chic, as opposed to ‘I wear black because my soul I dark.’ (laughs) I just think it’s chic and smart.

Do you wear really colourful underwear to compensate?
No, but I’m not going to lie, I’m wearing a bright red hoodie right now. Only in the comfort and privacy of my home.

The music is quite beautiful and serious, what part of your life do you let out the lighter side of things?
Yeah! Every day. We don’t walk off stage and cry, we just have a good time. And we’ve actually got so much to be happy about, we’re pretty smiley people. The recording studio is more serious, we talk quite a bit but it is pretty quiet in a nice way. The three of us are such good friends, and it gets to that point where awkward silences don’t exist.

What do you three do besides music?
Go for drinks, just be in each others company. We’re part of the same social group. When we finished the first tour we’d been together for about two years and every day I’d see them more than anyone else, and I thought in my head ‘I might want some space and in the most loving way just not see them for a bit’, but after four days of being back home I was ringing them up asking what they were up to and if they wanted to hang out. I’ve known Romy since I was three years old and we’ve spent pretty much every day together since, and been friends with Jamie since I was 11, so we’re used to being with each other all the time.

Can you sleep on aeroplanes?
I struggle with sleep in general to be honest. And going on an aeroplane is the most exciting thing, but when you have to do it five or six times a week you begin to hate it. So I don’t sleep very well, but I try. I’m quite a tall person so unless I have a bed it can be pretty hard. I’m trying to read at the moment.

What are you reading now?
I’m reading Tracey Thorn’s biography, which is really good, I’ve just started it.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve bought while travelling?
I’ve got a lot of nice records and to be honest I don’t play them very much, my vinyl player is wrapped up at the moment. I like looking at them, and all my music is on my computer or hard drive so it’s nice to have something physical. So I have a lot of Sade records on my mantelpiece right now.

Have you started working on a third album?
We’ve started writing. We’ve been trying to write on tour because we’ve never been able to do it, but it’s going well. We have bare skeletons of songs, like the barest of bare.

Can you give us any clues what it’ll sound like?
I think it’s too early to tell to be honest. I think the second record came out, we weren’t trying to sound like us but we weren’t trying to do anything drastically different. The third time round will be a case of maybe considering a bit more and I suppose pushing ourselves a bit more out of our comfort zones.

You’re touring Australia very soon, what have you got planned?
That’s what we’re working on at the moment, we’re in rehearsal. We’re playing this set every day on these tours so we like to change it up just to keep it exciting for ourselves. So we’ve changed up the set from the last tour we did in America and right now we’re just trying to figure it all out.

Will there be back-up dancers?
God that would be awesome. Maybe not this tour, maybe for the reunion tour.

Have you managed to do much recreationally in Australia?
The first time we went was Laneway and we were just constantly moving so we didn’t get an opportunity to get out there. I didn’t even go on a single beach, which was a bit of a disappointment. Then last time was such a short visit, I actually got to a beach but it was winter. So this time round it’s going to be a bit more relaxed so hopefully we’ll get an opportunity to see a bit more of the cities.

Are there any Aussie artists you really like?
I’ve only just been introduced to Chet Faker and I really like it. It’s kind of in the same vein I suppose as James Blake. And I saw his cover of ‘No Diggity’ and I found that really, really great.

He works a lot with Flume too.
Flume supported us on our last Australian tour, he’s an impressive guy and so young. Stuff has been going so well for him this year.

Who’s someone you’ve toured with or met on the road that has really surprised you?
On this tour we just did we were touring with Austra, a Canadian band, and I’m such a big fan. And, like what people may think about us, I thought they might be a bit scary, I think it was because I like the music so much I was scared I was going to be a bit star struck. But they were the most warm, warm people and it was a really incredible tour.

Jamie adopted a new last name, xx, do you and Romy ever think of getting a new tail?
Well, I think Jamie Smith is maybe the most common name in the world but I don’t know many Sims or many Madley Crofts, so I think we’re alright.

What’s your favourite ’90s song?
I’m going to say Sade ‘Cherish the Day’.

I’ve heard you like TV shows. Who are your favourite characters?
Yes! I used to watch a lot of Breaking Bad, but he gets worse and worse. Every series, he gets more of a monster so I don’t know if I like him but I like the show. If not then Arrested Development.

Are you excited about the movie?
Very excited! Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development is I think the funniest character ever made.

What’s your standard drink?
I’m just a beer drinker, I love beer, but if we’re getting fancy I like my rum. Oh, I like White Russian.

That has milk in it, right?
Yeah… I don’t drink it very much.

The XX – Australian Tour,  April 2013

Monday, 1st April – NEW SHOW ADDED
Metro City, Perth

Tuesday, 2nd April – SOLD OUT
Metro City, Perth

Thursday, 4th April – SOLD OUT
Festival Hall, Melbourne

Friday, 5th April – NEW SHOW ADDED
Festival Hall, Melbourne

Saturday, 6th April – SOLD OUT
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Sunday, 7th April – SOLD OUT
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Tuesday, 9th April 
Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane

http://www.yenmag.net/artery/artery-interviews/oliver-sim-the-xx/

•  20 March 2013

Brussels/London – 14th March 2013
 
Coexist, the second album by London outfit The xx has won the IMPALA prize for the best independent album in Europe.
 
A shortlist of eighteen of European independent releases from 2012 pitched The xx against a variety of artists. Genres as varied as drum and bass (Netsky), folk (First Aid Kit), hip-hop (Cro and Frenkie) and reggae (Jukka Poika) were all represented on the shortlist along with a comprehensive collection of rock and pop artists from across the continent. http://bit.ly/W68ELQ
 
“Coexist” is the second album that The xx have released through Young Turks, the London-based label that has also released material by El Guincho and John Talabot, nominees past and present for the IMPALA Award.
 
 “Coexist” has been extremely well received, both critically and commercially, with the album receiving numerous five-star reviews and debuting at number one in several European countries, whilst it’s singles “Angels” and “Chained” both featured highly in the IMPALA/Nielsen European Independent Airplay charts for 2012. http://bit.ly/14kj6Ah
 
Quotes
Romy Madley Croft, singer and guitarist with The xx, stated: “It is a real honour to receive this award. It has been great to learn more about IMPALA and the great things they are doing. We are a huge supporter of independent music and being on an independent record label means so much to us. We are very aware that the time, support and patience given to us by our label is not always the norm these days. Coexist would not have been the same album without it. Thank you so much for the award. xx The xx”
 
Helen Smith, Executive Chair of IMPALA, commented: “The shortlist was full of great European albums, and the result was close but The xx is the well deserved clear winner. As for the contribution of independent labels to great music, Romy’s quote gives the recipe – “time, support and patience”.”
 
More about The xx
The xx are an English indie pop band, formed in London in 2008 around the talents of Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith. The group released their critically acclaimed debut album, “xx” in August 2009. The album ranked highly on many best of 2009 lists, number one on the list compiled by The Guardian and second for NME. In 2010, the band won the Mercury Music Prize for their debut album.

More information about The xx: http://thexx.info/

More information about Young Turks: http://theyoungturks.co.uk/

http://www.impalamusic.org/content/140313

•  18 March 2013

The xx - Sunset (Kim Ann Foxman Remix)

•  18 March 2013