Anyway, if you haven’t heard of The xx by now there’s something seriously wrong with you and you should do the noble thing and take a long walk to the shed with father’s revolver. Here’s xx singer Romy Madley Croft to tell us more. (We love this band)…

So, we totally love the ‘Teardrops’ cover. What made you pick that song?
I first heard ‘Teardrops’ because of the garage version. I just loved the lyrics and then I discovered the original, and was looking for some lyrics to go with a riff and it just clicked. I’m really pleased with how it came together and that people that are just discovering us like it, it was done a long time ago.

What are some of your other favourite covers?
We’re big fans of Rolf Harris’s ‘Stairway’! Chromatics covering Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ and Yazoo’s ‘Only You’.

Timeless. So, you’re playing some shows in New York, then coming back here to support Florence And The Machine. It’s all looking rather good for The xx. You must be excited?
Very excited - I really can’t wait. It’s been a dream of mine to play Shepherd’s Bush Empire ever since I saw CocoRosie play there two years ago, and we’re playing it with Florence. Very exciting.

And the album’s on its way too. What can we expect?
One of the main things that we tried to do when recording the album was to keep the same essence of the demos but take it up just a tiny level. I’ve always been content with the simplicity of the instrumental side of the songs and the ever apparent hiss on all our demos. So we weren’t trying to make the songs more polished or fill in gaps.

And where did the magic happen?
We recorded the album at the XL in-house studio, which was basically the garage, and we also rehearsed in there when it was just a garage with a mattress on the wall for soundproofing. Then they renovated it and we were the first band to record our album there. Jamie Smith from the band produced the album, with engineering help from Rodaidh (pronounced Roddy), the XL sound engineer come studio manager. The recording took about two months of intensive nights at the studio during and after office hours and the writing pretty much happened from the age of 16 until now.

How does the writing work these days?
Oliver (Sim) and I write all the lyrics. Everything that I sing, I have written and the same for him; one of us usually comes up with a verse or a chorus idea and share it with the other so they can put there own take on it. We are never singing to each other in the songs, although they could be seen as a duet. There are recurring themes of the sun, the moon, the stars, elements, time, night - all these things I find quite romantic.

It’s quite a low-fi/dark sound. We hope the live shows aren’t too maudlin?
Since the beginning we have always wanted the songs that we recorded to be playable live exactly as they are, which in turn lead to the simplicity of the parts and the restrained layering of instruments in the early demos. This is something we still go by. We still use the children’s Casio keyboard we have always done; that is the only keyboard we use. Jamie plays the beats in real time through, which keeps things more fluid for us. We are all not natural performers, so the live show is still an ever growing process.

How did it all begin for The xx?
I’ve known Oliver since nursery school; there has never been a time when I don’t remember him being around. We then met Baria (Qureshi) and Jamie at secondary school and started jamming in our GCSE music class. It just built from there really; we’ve all grown up together.

What made you want to form a band?
My dad used to play me Jimi Hendrix, John Martyn and The Velvet Underground growing up so I’ve always had incredible music around me, but the first bands that really got me passionate about music were The Kills, The Distillers and CocoRosie.

If you could replace The ‘xx’ in The xx with any other what would it be?
It’s irreplaceable. Haha!