The xx Track ‘Coexist’ Album Streams With Unique Website

It started with just one fan, and since then, it's spread to many corners of the world. On Sept. 3, the xx gave one lucky listener a stream of their new album, 'Coexist,' a full eight days before today's (Sept. 11) official release date. They then instructed that fan to go ahead and share the album stream with friends and fellow fans, have those people pass it along to more, and so on and so forth. Pretty soon, 'Coexist' existed pretty much all around the globe.

Before leaking the album, the xx teamed up with some Microsoft programmers to develop a unique website that would facilitate the sharing of the stream and track its movement. The results were posted on a map, which uses cool little arcs to provide a visualization of the transfers that took place with graphics that look somewhat like nuclear warheads being delivered in that old '80s Matthew Broderick movie 'War Games.'

"With The xx, it was about blending music, art, and technology -- creating beauty in simplicity," reads a blog post from the Microsoft developers. "When you land on the page, you’ll notice an incredible visualization of how the album Coexist was shared from just a single person. By using your mouse (or finger) to move the time slider up and down on the right of the map, you can interact with the visualization to see how the experience was shared over time."

While we weren't able to get the interactive slider to work, it's still cool to look at while you listen to 'Coexist.' But hurry up and check it out now -- we don't know how much longer it will be available streaming online. And don't forget to pass it along to your friends so you can watch on the map as you add to the spreading of the album.