“It felt like a family holiday”

Jamie xx speaks to Tom Doyle.

You made this album in New York, Reykjavik, Los Angeles, Marfa (Texas), as well as London. “We basically didn’t have any idea of what we wanted it to sound like, but we knew that we wanted to change the process. The last album was made very intensely, the three of us in a dark room in London for months and months on end. This time we wanted to be on the opposite side of the world and just be out of our little comfort zone.”

How did the locations affect the album? “I guess all of the places were quite big, open spaces, which may have had an effect. But really, no matter where we were, we were still spending most of the hours of the day in a studio. But to be in it together and all living in the same places, it kind of felt like a family holiday almost.”

Did your solo album have a big influence on the group record? “Well, when we started writing songs for my album, we were writing in a different way, in twos instead of as a three. It felt quite freeing. So when we went in to record as the band, we just let go of a lot of unspoken rules and we were just in the moment making music that sounded good to us. We weren’t thinking too much into the future.”

This record spotlights the dance element of The xx. Were you growing tired of being seen as gloomy youths? “I don’t think we were purposely trying to. But since we were, like, shy 18-year-olds new to this whole thing, we’ve all grown a lot as people. We’re generally very happy, and we wanted to express that, I guess, in our music.”

But this is dance music often tinged with sadness… “Our favourite genre (laughs). I guess I like the juxtaposition that you can be dancing, which is kind of naturally quite a happy thing to do, but if you take that song home and listen to it, it can also make you cry.”