My good friend Mat (only one "t" necessary, no need for redundancy) recently introduced me to The XX. Although the band is only four years old and have only released one studio LP, the Guardian UK placed them at number one on their "Album of the Year List", NME ranked them at number two, Pitchfork at number three and Rolling Stone at number nine.
Southwest Londoners and lifelong friends Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft formed The XX in 2005. However, they can trace their musical relationship back to an early 1990's photo of three year-old Oliver and Romy sharing a xylophone.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2010.