We previously compared the art school aesthetic of UK four-piece The xx to black clad countrymen These New Puritans. Let’s see – penchant for semiotics? Check. Drum machines? Check. Editorial ready haircuts? Double check.
Similarly in their new video for “Basic Space” Directed by Anthony Dickenson, The xx share These New Puritan’s fondness for symbols, light and science. But where These New Puritans explore the more angular and incendiary end of the rock spectrum, The xx inhabit a gossamer thin dreamland that combines childlike lulls with languid seduction. Like a Voodoo Nursery Rhyme heard in an underwater K-Hole.
For those who vibed on first cut “Crystalised” you’ll find more to love in “Basic Space”. It’s leaner than a Kenyan marathon runner and meanders like a nomad on acid but it’s the warm human center, the duel girl/boy vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim that galvanizes the minimal instrumentation and sparks the magic.
For all the Grunge revivalists and compression obsessed Dance Producers that proliferate the current musical landscape it’s refreshing to hear the spaces in between, take stock and just breathe. In The xx’s world at least less is more kids. Less is more.
