Sasha Frere-Jones on The xx

"Last August, I saw a band from England called The xx. … The xx are, in the purest sense, a modern band: their music could not exist without the machines that make the noises and the machines that record them. The music, like the band, felt reluctant — a guitar line inched out with only a measly beat as chaperon, entirely immune to dynamic spikes or variation. … Months later, when I took my friends’ advice and listened to the band’s album, I realized that I had missed the entire point. The songs on 'xx' are as intimate as pop gets, and, now that I’ve fallen for the music, it makes complete sense that it baffled me live. These are songs to be sung inches from someone’s ear, preferably with the lights off. The music is all closeups, and transferring it to a big, unfriendly space would just strand the gestures. I am impressed that the band has been able to convert so many people with their live shows, because the songs on the album feel to me like the love letters of Tamina in Milan Kundera’s 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' — letters that were so intimate that what gave them their 'meaning and worth' was that they were intended 'for her alone'" ("Pop Music," New Yorker, 1/25/10).