​Jamie Smith—a.k.a. Jamie xx, of The xx and of collaborations with the late Gil Scott-Heron—has released his first single, "Far Nearer," in both limited-edition vinyl and download form. The B-side, "Beat For," is a chilly, downtempo track that could very easily soundtrack a spell of the spins, while the sun-dappled A-side sounds a bit like a scattered-on-the-ground remake of "My Girls" (some readers will probably nominate the song for Summer Jam status immediately after reading the description; I'm a bit more on the fence but will try to give the song a few more spins). Both tracks are streaming after the jump.

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You post things like this on the internet, you are absolutely, 100% part of the problem, and yet here we are: xx's "Islands," as put through the 'ol frog-sex filter. Now you know. [Fader]

photo by S. Taylor

Not a clunker in the bunch of this year's VVM SXSW afternoon party at La Zona Rosa: Surfer Blood, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Superchunk, the xx. Surfer Blood, who'd by now lost count which number show this was, opened--and they are, as we later discovered, the nicest kids ever. Pains of Being Pure at Heart brought out new songs, remained earnestly cute. Superchunk did "Slack Motherfucker" (!). The xx caused a mook behind us to fake a lady-gasm--look/hope for a Surfer Blood collaboration in the not-too-distant future. Full gallery of self-aggrandizing photos over here, selected highlights below.

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Surfer Blood, doing their thing at the Cake Shop, circa CMJ. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.

​Yeah, it's still months away, but someone has to kick SXSW season off, right? So it is with some pride and anticipation that we announce the Village Voice's 2010 SXSW party, featuring Superchunk, the xx, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and our old sparring partners, Surfer Blood. Friday, March 19, La Zona Rosa, Austin, TX, 12pm - 5pm. Free, first come first serve, open to the general public. These bands are alternately old friends and young heroes to us, so it just didn't seem worth keeping it secret any longer. You will probably forget, but we will definitely remind you. And if you forgot who these other guys were in the first place...

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Meredith Gran via The Hype Machine

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In real life, Romy Madley Croft Oliver Sim has eyes so piercing that we're pretty sure he uses them as bottle-openers on particularly dreary days; now, artist Meredith Gran has mastered the frightening gaze of the xx frontman in cartoon form, if only by entirely removing his eye-lids. The rest of the members as according to Gran, while not nearly as menacing, have the same entertainingly unaffected boredom as their real-life counterparts. Thanks to The Zeitgeist Project, we have 49 more illustrations inspired by the The Hype Machine's most blogged about artists of '09. Check out the rest here.

Different locale, same concept.

As Camille pointed out, this year's CMJ is pretty devoid of marquee acts; there are no gigantic queues for Spoon, the Shins, the Knife, or the like. What we do have is a compounded hysteria for the zygotes that would be second or third tier in other years but, in this year's reticent line-up, are commanding all of the hysteria. Which is how a little goth band from south London became the instantaneous mascots for the entire, widespread scope of college radio.

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