NEW MUSIC:It may be a good idea for indie record labels to set up an office outside the gates of the Elliot Comprehensive in south London. A small Portakabin with a desk would do the job. It's an investment that would pay off handsomely because this is the alma mater of Hot Chip, Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, Burial and The Maccabees.
The XX are the latest band to emerge from this unlikely hothouse, though band members Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim first bumped into each other as toddlers at nursery school. As you can tell from the band photo, it’s not all that long since they were going in and out those school gates every day.
But what the four XX-ers are doing now is producing music which belies their youth. Their melancholic, fragile pop sounds as if it has been informed by years spent coping with the school of hard knocks, rather than the standard number of years in front of a blackboard.
Debut single Crystalisedis a delicate, hushed wee thing. It's aflutter with call-and-response vocals from Croft and Sim, who trade verses over chilled, sometimes menacing sounds which shyly tip a cap at The Knife and The Kills. They've even done a version of Womack Womack's Teardropswhich flips that usually euphoric mirrorball nugget into the saddest post-disco lament you'll hear.
The band have spent the last few months in their label XL’s studio recording their debut album. XX, which is due for release later this summer is sexy, nocturnal and haunting. It’s music you’re going to be hearing in your dreams for many months to come. This time around, XX marks the spot.
[ www.myspace.com/thexxOpens in new window ]
Girls: no jokes, no girls
The name is a bit of a tease given that this San Francisco combo consists of two dudes and a floating cast of other dudes. The music JR White, Christopher Owens and company are producing out there in California, though, is a different kettle of fish. There are no jokes or quips with this material.
Lust For Life, released as a limited-edition single for True Panther, is simple, sparse and hugely endearing with earnest downbeat lyrics about love and life and a shapely, giddy guitar riff. Elsewhere, they turn up the amps and waltz away to symphonies that alternate between twangy garage-rock and effervescent shoegazing.
There's an album on the way, which producer John Goodmanson, who has worked with Los Campesinos, Fight Like Apes and Death Cab For Cutie has worked on. Expect that to be when everyone else falls in love.
www.myspace.com/girlssanfran
Four more
Highlife
White Magic's Sleepy Doug Shaw's latest project is producing laidback Afropop and shimmering summer sweetness.
www.myspace.com/highlifehighlife
Topcat & Underdog
Smart old-school hip-hop from Donegal/Derry boy and girl. Away We Go bigs up coconuts, bananas and sultanas, which is OK by us.
www.myspace.com/topcatunderdog
Race Horses
Debut single Cake was recorded in a shed in an eco-village by these wide- eyed Welsh pop fantasists.
www.myspace.com/racehorsesmusic
Emil & Friends
Sparkling electronic pop from a Massachusetts guy whose Downed Economy EP has him throwing all the right post-MGMT shapes.
www.myspace.com/emilandfriends
