Bonding over a shared love of dark, emotive 80's guitar sounds and the highend sheen of American R&B, THE XX are being justly heralded as the UK's most original and treasured alt-pop artifact of the last decade. THE XX are four nineteen year old childhood friends who formed whilst attending south west London's Elliot School; the comprehensive whose alumni also includes such acclaimed boundary-pushers as BURIAL, FOURTET and HOT CHIP. The enveloping, vocal partnership of best friends and songwriters Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, alongside Baria Qureshi and Jamie Smith, is a union that would drop-jaws in any decade. Their unique sound befits a band whose wide range of influences combine through beautiful, hushed vocal duets and a brilliantly inventive use of samples and low-end frequencies to produce stark, sweet melancholic pop.