walking upstream…
The xx
sourcesWikipedia
The xx formed in 2005 at Elliott School in Putney, south-west London, where childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim began writing songs together, soon joined by schoolmate Jamie Smith on production and guitarist Baria Qureshi, who departed just after the band finished its 2009 self-titled debut. That record turned scarcity into a whole aesthetic: hushed boy-girl vocals trading unfinished sentences over reverb-soaked guitar, dub-weighted bass, and spare drum-machine clicks, with more silence in it than almost anything else on radio that year. 'xx' won the Mercury Prize in 2010 and set a template British pop spent a decade absorbing. 'Coexist' (2012) and 'I See You' (2017) opened the sound outward, the latter shaped by Jamie xx's parallel rise as a dance producer, before the trio eased into a hiatus as each member pursued solo work.
the sound in question
2009
VCRThe xx
walk the tributaries ↓
Aaliyah1990s · R&B / Pop / Hip hop
Oliver Sim has said flatly, "I'm a big Aaliyah fan," tracing it back to raiding his older sister's Aaliyah and TLC CDs as a kid — and that fandom feeds directly into the record's rhythmic backbone (the band even covered Aaliyah's 'Hot Like Fire'). Aaliyah's Timbaland-era productions modeled R&B built from negative space: syncopated, stuttering low end and a breathy, conversational vocal that never oversold a line. The xx, and especially Jamie Smith's production, apply that same restraint to indie guitar music, letting a spare bassline and clipped drum pattern carry the groove while the vocals stay hushed and intimate.
listen: upstream & heresource: Loud And Quiet ↗
1998
Are You That SomebodyAaliyah
2009
IslandsThe xx
listen forSet "Are You That Somebody" beside "Islands" — both hang the whole track on a spare, syncopated low end and skittering percussion, with an unhurried vocal riding just behind the beat rather than pushing against it.
The Cure1980s · Post-punk / Gothic rock / Alternative rock
Romy Madley Croft has said plainly that she's "grown up listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Cure," and the imprint surfaces less as tempo or hooks than as guitar-as-atmosphere: spindly, heavily reverbed notes picked out into negative space rather than strummed, built to hold a mood rather than drive a rhythm. The xx strip that gothic wash down even further, but the same trick of using a single guitar figure to color an entire room of sound, while the vocal stays hushed and exposed on top of it, carries straight through.
listen: upstream & here
1980
A ForestThe Cure
2009
CrystalisedThe xx
listen forCue up "A Forest" next to "Crystalised" — both hang the whole track on one spindly, echo-laden guitar figure circling a tense minor key that never resolves into a strum, with a vocal that floats quiet and half-submerged over the top.
Cocteau Twins1980s–90s · Dream pop / Ethereal wave / Post-punk
By the band's own account, encountering Cocteau Twins around the time they signed to XL Recordings reshaped how they thought about guitar and voice as texture rather than message — the Scottish trio's blurred, intertwined vocals and chorus-drenched guitar became a touchstone even though the discovery came after The xx's own sound was already forming. It's audible in their instinct to drown guitar in thick reverb until it reads as a wash of color rather than a lead line, and to let two voices drift and overlap instead of one sitting forward in the mix.
listen: upstream & here
1990
Heaven or Las VegasCocteau Twins
2009
InfinityThe xx
listen forPlay "Heaven or Las Vegas" against "Infinity" — both wrap two blended, murmured vocal lines inside a haze of reverberant guitar, prioritizing the overall shimmer of the arrangement over any single lyric landing sharply.