XX marks the spot with third album
Band finds firm footing with its third album, I See You, and seems transformed onstage
The xx’s self-titled 2009 debut easily goes down as one of the unexpected hits of the first decade of the 2000s.
The trio of vocalist/bassist Oliver Sim, vocalist/guitarist Romy Madley Croft and producer/percussionist Jamie xx (James Thomas “Jamie” Smith) delivered some of the most-sophisticated and spacious dream pop imaginable while the members were just barely out of secondary school. The group took the prestigious Mercury Prize for the record and went from playing to nobody in small London bars to headlining.
By the time they launched their first North American tour in Vancouver in 2012, the second album, Coexist, was out, but the band was still finding its performing legs. It would be fair to say they were pretty wobbly. The performance was moving, but it seemed that the whole thing could have collapsed, too.
Last month, The xx performed on a massive South American Lollapalooza tour like seasoned concert pros. Having just released their third album, titled I See You, to almost universal acclaim, the trio that took to the stage is now polished and potent. Sim chatted from the bus on the way to play Coachella before the group performs at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at the University of B.C. on Tuesday.
“We’re from London, where the audiences are pretty reserved and those South American fans are absolutely amazing,” said Sim. “They knew all the lyrics and sang along, even though English is not the language spoken there, and then in the really quiet parts, these massive audiences would be utterly silent. It was really quite astonishing.”
What is also astonishing is how this trio has managed to craft such intimate and fragile music out of influences ranging from classic post-punk acts like the Cure to ’90s R&B, classic soul and fullon electronic dance music. Right from the start, songs such as Crystalised and Basic Space showcased the back and forth, near conversational, vocals interplay between longtime best friends Croft and Sim.
This reaches a whole new level on new tracks such as the sublime
Say Something Loving, where Sim declares: I do myself a disservice/ To feel this weak, to be this nervous, before Croft counters later with: Here come my insecurities/I almost expect you to leave. It’s like the listener is in on the mostpersonal pillow talk. It’s easy to assume that these two must talk openly about everything to pen lyrics like this.
“Absolutely not, in fact it wasn’t until this album that we could even be in the same room at the same time writing,” he said. “We used to email back and forth because it was so much easier than being face-toface. This meant that what I wrote was mine, what Romy wrote was hers, and we did it completely differently this time around and wrote together in the same room and it changed things from what may have been collage to something more conversational.”
Many critics have noted that it changed things for the better, too. For all the rah-rah about the debut, the reception for the followup Coexist was somewhat lukewarm. In typical sophomore-slump fashion, the group didn’t capture the same spark of invention and was in a bit of a holding pattern. I See You is a different beast entirely.
“I’m proud of Coexist, I’m not going to put it down, but whenever I think of the process of how we recorded it all locked away it leaves me wanting to never do that again,” he said. “We were too isolated, we lost some perspective and this time we did it very differently, recording in a number of different places and putting ourselves out there playing small college-town shows and it produced the desired result.”
The other key to the success of I See You was the time off after the previous blitz of the constant touring following the first two albums. During that time, Jamie xx exploded as a producer for everyone from the late, great Gil Scott-Heron on We’re New Here to Drake f. Rihanna (Take Care), Radiohead (Bloom remixes) and Alicia Keys (When it’s All Over). He also dropped his Grammy-nominated solo debut In Colour and scored the ballet Tree of Codes. Sim did some non-musical things, including a modelling gig for Christian Dior SE.
“I won’t be pursuing a career in modelling, but for a one-go thing I got paid and got to keep the clothes, so great,” said Sim. “You know, we started touring as teenagers and kept it up for a number of years and it’s a pretty closed-off life. When I came home, I had to learn how to fend for myself for a bit and catch up to friends who had been through college and grown up a lot.”
Sim says that he feels I See You is the work of an adult. But then admits he felt that way after each of the other records.
“Who knows what I’ll say after No. 4? As long as I’m not jaded and still learning, it’s great” he said.
“The British side of me was somewhat embarrassed about admitting that I wanted to get back onstage, but the truth is that it’s just so much fun and we’re all so happy up there now. We can make people dance too, which we always wanted.”