(Editor’s note: yeah, we took the summer off. Hacks moved. I moved. R Jamz moved. Trixie…is still insane. In the same place, though. Our first Res music showcase at the Tank post-hiatus will be Sept 12, with bands that are going to shock you sane. We’re doing 2 shows in October. You read that right, jiminy crispers, 2 shows. And the web site redesign? It’s coming. Unless Hacks hates me, we won’t lose all content this time. So that’s that. Welcome back.)
I am not meant to see Ghostly International band School of 7 Bells live. I’m just not. After missing them opening for M83 and them then playing a free show, which I’ve been somehow kept from attending, in every city (well, ok, both cities) I’ve lived in in 2009, I assumed last night would be the one. A free show in NY, at South Street Sea Port, the final Sea Port Music Fest event of the year, the night after one of the most life-affirming shows I’ve ever seen (from an artist I’ve followed practically my whole life who I unfortunately can’t name or discuss on Res any more, because, despite her 2008 promises to go indie, she’s signed to one of the biggest major-label clusterfucks in modern music. Oh, and her name rhymes with Rory Stamos).
In the words of one mister Mike “The Streets” Skinner, it was supposed to be so easy: get on the train, go to the Sea Port, see School of 7 Bells. New York City Transit, however, it ain’t that smart-or, rather, was too smart for me, and so, while the glorious dreampop band probably handed out free health care and kittens stuffed with hundred-dollar bills on the sea port, I drank with friends miles away and missed S07B for the fourth time in 6 months.
That would have been enough let-down for one night, if not for the fact that the band opening for School Of 7 Bells at Sea Port last night is, frankly, my favorite thing in the world right now: The XX.
It took me forever to hunt music from this London band down, after hearing about them for-freaking-ever ago from The Fader (I love y’all, call me), but it seems in the past few weeks XX fever has begun a slow, creeping, molasses-like spread. Fitting, too, because the music these kids make is based around dripping honey into empty spaces, all sparse snaps and ambient strums and incredibly haunting boy/girl vocal interplay. If The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are this year’s cute-to-be-in-love-to band, The XX are this year’s thinking couple’s band: old enough to smoke cigarettes, fight outside of bars and utter velvet-tipped killers like “I can’t give it up to someone else’s touch because I care too much”.
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This is one of my favorite songs on their forthcoming Rough Trade self-titled debut, because it takes the sum of some parts-an obvious Chris Isaac nod, a cold winter night, Michael Mayer’s old dark prince of Minimal production-and makes something entirely its own, entirely gorgeous.
I’m sure, pretty sure, that seeing The XX, with the sun setting behind them on the pier last night, would have been absolutely amazing. I’ll never know-the Pimms Cup I had instead was pretty damn good, though.
Video for The XX’s “Crystalised”
Welcome back :)