Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1 album | Virgin | 2003

Richard Hawley added subtle, discrete slide guitar and backing vocals to this pretty ballad from Richard X’s solitary album, with his old Pulp bandmate Jarvis Cocker on strangely maudlin lead vocals. ‘Into U’ has the disctinction of being one of the only tracks on X-Factor that doesn’t feature X cheekily sampling and mashing up bits of other pop songs, but the chiming melody sounds like it’s copying the sound of well-known bells peeling. Richard X thanks Daniel Miller in the liner notes. The track was co-written with Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval.

Richard X produced the new Erasure album The Violet Flame which will be released in September 2014.

First published 2013; re-posted 2014

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence