The xx have given some clues as to the creative direction that they’ll be taking in the future.

Speaking to the NME shortly after winning the 2010 Barclaycard Mercury Prize for their debut album, Romy Madley Croft said that electronic music is likely to more deeply influence their sound going forward.

“I’ve started taking on a lot of Jamie’s music,” she says. “Bands like Mount Kimbie and people like Joy Orbison and James Blake now take up a big portion of what I listen to…I think that will definitely seep in. I actually think it will have an influence without us even releasing it.”

She also mentions their current interest in Zola Jesus, Warpaint and Beach House, but asserts that The xx are “more inspired by dance riffs than anything else.”

The band’s Jamie Smith has said that he plans to spend the £20,000 Mercury prize money on building a custom studio for the band, one in which he will also live. He expresses some uncertainty as to what form their next batch of recorded material will take.

“I do enjoy songwriting, and I think we’re gonna do [a second album],” he says. “I suppose what I mean is, we’re gonna write and record just for the love of it. Even if we didn’t do anything with it.”

“There is no plan to even put out a second album,” he continues. “There’s just a plan to start being creative gain, with no big intentions.”

Rumour has it that Jamie is working on a high-profile remix album for a labelmate, and also a solo artist album. The latter may be very close to completion, at least if this tweet from XL Recordings is anything to go by.

Romy is a little more conservative – and we dare say more realistic – in her forecast. “What we’ve achieved with this album is way more than we could have dreamed of, so we’ve kind of done everything that we possibly hoped for with it. We’re content with that. And we’re in no massive rush to feel like we have to put out another album. All we really wanna do is make sure it’s right and take our time with it.”

“It feels like now we’re gonna make a whole new thing that reflects everything that’s happened to us,” she concludes. “But whatever we do in the future, it will definitely be different.”