The xx – Angels
After months of teasing us with live versions of new material, The xx have finally announced their new album and a string of tour dates, and finally a studio version of latest single ‘Angels’. You can spot it as an xx track a mile off - Romy Croft’s intimate vocals over a bare bones guitar line, with that distinctive xx style that signals the wistful romance of too many late nights.
And as you’d expect from any new material from The xx, there are a number of strong ‘Angels’ remixes out there, including the ice-cold Bodhi remix and the blissed out synths of the Theatre of Delays version.
The xx recently completed their latest album Coexist, which is due out on XL Recordings in September. The album was recorded in London,partly in a Dalston room shared with the Horrors, and partly in a studio in Angel. “Jamie found this studio – it’s not soundproofed – just a room, really,” Madely Croft told Pitchfork. “There’s black velvet on the walls to dampen the sound; I love it. That’s really where the album was made, we’ve been in there since autumn.”
The recording sessions for ‘Coexist’ began in 2010, and differed from the writing of the first record, which they started writing when vocalist Oliver Sim was the tender age of 15. Things have changed a lot since then. “I was writing much more from a place of observation, and my expectations about how I saw things to be in the future,” said Sim. “On this record, it’s been more about my personal experiences. And we’ve written a couple of songs in a way that we’ve never done before, where we’ve gone into a room with absolutely nothing and written from scratch. That’s taken a lot more communication and openness, which has been really nice.”
‘Angels’ also typifies the new album through its lyrical content. “The whole album is about learning and growing up together and moving on and being adults. And relationships: They’re still all love songs, but there’s past and present,” says Madeley Croft.
