The xx were four precocious youngsters from South West London who provide the hushed minimal strokes of Young Marble Giants and early Cure but through the minds of a young act obsessed with the R&B turns of Ciara and Aaliyah, having gone so far as to cover the latter's "Hot Like Fire" as the b-side for their first single, "Crystalised" and having first been picked up after recording a sensational version of Womack and Womack's "Teardrops". XX is an inspired, broken and uplifting record, packed with melancholic charms that recalls the suburban disillusion of the previous Burial records and Portishead's Dummy.