Photo by Hannah Marshall
Earlier this morning, following a series of teasers and snippets, The xx shared new single “On Hold” and announced details of their forthcoming album, I See You. The group then joined Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1 to talk about the album and perform a live set in-studio.
This set marked the first xx performance in two years, as the group has been largely quiet since touring on their 2013 album Coexist. After kicking the set off with “On Hold”, they performed “Basic Space” and “Islands” from their 2009 self-titled debut as well as “Angels” and “Fiction” from Coexist. The biggest surprise was a mashup of their song “Shelter” with “Gosh”, a track off Jamie xx’s 2015 solo debut In Colour.
In the interview with Annie Mac, bassist and keyboardist Oliver Sim revealed that I See You is heavily influenced by Jamie’s work on In Colour. “I think it’s quite an eclectic album,” he said. “On the whole, it’s a poppier kind of moment that’s been influenced by a lot of what Jamie’s done. For the first time ever making this album, we had songs to pick and choose to make an album, so these are 10 of our absolute favorites that we’ve made in the past couple of years.”
He added: “I like to think there’s a lot of joy on this album whereas maybe that’s not something people have associated with us.”
I See You is set for a January 13th release through Young Turks. Listen into the band’s full BBC Radio 1 appearance here.
