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Artist News
XL man gives glimpse into new The xx and Jai Paul
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 11 June 2014
Hear ye, hear ye, The xx and Jai Paul, who I’m naming in the same breath because both acts are on the XL Recordings label, are both working on songs. As separate entities, mind, not in any kind of joint way. Still, quite exciting, right?
Any thrill you felt just now, you can credit it to Rodaidh McDonald, prolific producer, part-time A&R man and boss at XL’s in-house studio, who had a talk with Dazed earlier this week and revealed all. Well, revealed a bit.
Discussing first The xx’s still highly-secretive third LP, recording for which will begin in earnest in July at bases in France, Iceland and certain states of America, he said: “It’s a completely different concept, just trying everything, trying to find new ways of working, new sounds”.
Of its already ‘international’ kind of feel, he said: “There are songs which have come out of our experiences in New York and Texas that would never have come out in London; the colours and the ideas and the moods on some of these songs are just not things you would write in London. It’s about opening things up a bit more. They are a London band, but they’re also a band that’s spent a lot of time in different countries”.
Subsequently staying rather tight-lipped on the Jai Paul front, which hasn’t really seen any action since ‘that’ LP leak last spring, McDonald said: “I did something with him last week, some vocal production on a new song. We finished it, whether he wants to put it out or not, I don’t know”.
He added: “It’s just a very long process for him I guess, he’s been working on [his album] for years. One of the things that I sort of identified was that he might benefit from some help using vocals. But his music sounds so good, he doesn’t need any help, I think he’s perfect”.
