Last night was the last of the outdoor shows at South Street Seaport for 2009, closing the series out with an electronic / rock themed night. It brought out a hardcore contingent for School of Seven Bells and a handful of people out to see The XX.
The XX make deceptively gentle pop music with interweaving male and female vocals complimenting the minimal clean melodies with lyrics about living and loving with a very strong and unexpected soul bent. The guitars and synths meld and split with an effortless cool, as though it doesn’t care if you pay attention or not while the drums are more complex and inventive than you’d expect. It is this effortless cool which made me a bit concerned that they would be boring to watch live.
The audience interaction was as minimal as their music. A few understated “thank you’s” following songs and a simple introduction of “We’re The XX” were the only indication that we the audience were even present in their minds. Romy Madly-Croft and Oliver Sim, the vocalists, were more focused on their craft, with Oliver’s eyes rarely straying from his bass or Romy as she sang. A presence echoed by Baria Qureshi, the second guitarist / keyboardist and Jamie Smith, the producer and drum programmer of the group. If you’re the type who demands witty banter or theatrical aspects, then you would be ill served by a live performance by The XX. If you are a fan of ambience and the ability for a band to cloak you and draw you into their particular world, then by all means, go see them at your earliest opportunity.
I was not familiar with Brooklyn’s School of Seven Bells having never heard them before yesterday, but I came away from my first experience rather impressed by their stagecraft and their fan base that packed the pier. Though there are only three people on stage with two of them performing with instruments, Benjamin Curtis Alejandra Deheza and Claudia Deheza (identical twins) managed to fill every inch of the pier with sound.
The synths and samples layer and layer and layer with the guitar providing either texture or melody depending on the needs of the individual songs while Alejandra and Claudia provide vocals. As it was live, the lyrics while clean, were still a bit lost in the overall sound, so their complexity was not apparent until I went to their MySpace page after the show.
