The xx admit Jamie xx’s solo success brought the ‘fire’ back to the band

The trio release 'I See You' today (January 13)

The xx have admitted that Jamie xx’s recent album and live DJ shows inspired their new record ‘I See You’.

Speaking on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim also said they were thankful that he produced the record because it gave them chance to “live” again. You can watch the interview here.

“Going to Jamie’s shows definitely lit a fire under us,” Sim said. “We wanted to be up there. We were so proud of Jamie but we were like ‘We want this again’. It drove us to work on the songs that we had to make sure that they were the best songs they could be.”

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Croft added: “Whilst we had some time off making this album, I’m grateful for Jamie making this album because it gave Oliver and I some time to live.”

Read more: The xx – ‘I See You’ review

‘I See You’ was recorded between March 2014 and August 2016 in New York, Texas, Reykjavik, Los Angeles and London and produced by the band’s Jamie xx, plus Rodaidh McDonald.

It was released today (January 13) and was made available on a number of streaming platforms.

Sim also said that Frank Ocean helped to inspire the title of the new record.

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“In the place where we named the album and we came up with the visual theme for it, Jamie had rented a car, it was a summer in London, we were driving around listening to Frank Ocean’s album sitting there and saying, shall we do it, shall we just call it ‘I See You’, yeah cool let’s just do it,” he said.

“This was hours and weeks of me waking up in the middle of the night thinking is this right, is it not, talking sitting in a park thinking is this right, any moment, going round and round. It felt like we were all back together having a really nice time, and it felt like the right thing.”

The xx are set to head on tour in March. See their 2017 UK dates in full below.

Nottingham Motorpoint Arena (March 4, 2017)
Manchester O2 Apollo (March 5-6)
London O2 Academy Brixton (March 8-11, 13-15)
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena (March 17)

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