MuSiK: :::...iNtRoDuCiNg ThE bAnD...::: Posted 11/14/2006 2:36:52 AM :::chipboys::: Free Image Hosting by ImageCave.com Hot Chip Biography ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There's something odd about Hot Chip. Some fracture between conception and actuality that makes them all the more intriguing. Ostensibly Hot Chip sign up to the HipHop dream as espoused by MTV Cribs and presumably as lived by, ooh, Pharrell Williams? They just seem to have some problems translating it to Wandsworth, SE London, is all. In fact they seem to have trouble squaring it with the equal, but to some extent opposite, influence of, say, Bill Callahan from Smog. Or Lambchop. Or Crystal Gayle. So, instead of doing the obvious thing and working out what sort of band they are going to be, they conclude that they will be all of them at once. And then they'll make it all in a room smaller than the box room at your Mum's house. With whatever's lying around. That is, whatever's lying around - toy trumpets, kazoos, blah. This to conform to a cherished idea of Brian Wilson's that, in the studio, anything goes. "Whereas a band like Primal Scream simply want to BE The Rolling Stones for one album, then King Tubby on the next, and Royal Trux on another, we prefer to make references in miniature to the spirit of the records and performances we love and admire," says vocalist/keyboard player Alexis Taylor. "We might apply an interesting approach to recording that we have learnt from an artist, but with a different set of aesthetic principles. So traces of RTX, Anti-Pop Consortium, 'I'm Your Man' era-Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, MadLib and Will Oldham, for example, may all be somewhere in one song, rather than becoming the blueprint for an entire album." The crux of all this, though, is the dynamic tension between the sheer respect for the production techniques of, say, Darkchild on Brandy's 'What About Us?', and a very English (and, some might say, white) need to tell it a little more like how it is. So, on the Neptunes inspired 'Playboy', you get the aspirational ghetto stylings of a Hype Williams as re-shot by Mike Leigh, with Hot Chipper Joe singing about blazing Yo La Tengo from his Peugeot as he tools round Putney with the top down. 'Pathos' is a word that springs to mind not for the first or last time while listening to 'Coming On Strong'. But Hot Chip are nothing if not funny, although it's safe to say they are pretty deadpan in their humour. This is perhaps best exemplified by 'Keep Fallin'', a song which contains Alexis Chip's somewhat provocative boast that he is "like Stevie Wonder" but "can see things". This in a song that manages to shoehorn in musical nods to Ween, Womack & Womack, the Spencer Davies Group, plus the great Stevie himself, while lyrically referencing the myth of Sisyphus and cracking crap jokes. Phew! "It should sound packed and be brimming with ideas, like 'Pet Sounds' or 'Paul's Boutique'," says Alexis before tracing the roots of Hot Chip's sound to the interplay between his naivety and Joe's knowledge. And this is the way it seems to go. Hot Chip say they have between 10 and 15 songs on the go constantly, recording everything they play together and then painstakingly piecing together the best elements into a new whole, which often bears little relation to the source material. "Like Public Enemy," they say by way of example. Unlike most of their heroes and role models, however, Hot Chip prefer things to be slightly off or too loud or in some way odd, and set great store in the accidental nature of recording. Perhaps it is this that gives them the slightly homemade feel that permeates the whole 'Coming On Strong', and makes it an album so high on charm. The party sounds that intersperse the Tom Tom Club-by 'Beach Party' are more back-garden barbeque than the primetime Prince which inspired them, and are deliberately designed to evoke innocence rather than more Bacchanalian pleasures. Elsewhere, home itself is never far from centre stage, whether it be the bereft rooms and empty refrigerator of 'Crap Kraft Dinner', or the quiet domestic tragedy of 'Baby Said'. "Baby said she wanted adventure / I said, baby, the outside world's not safe / We should sit down". And, outside the home you get... the car. Yes, the aforementioned hymn to the Peugeot is but one of three tunes on the joys of driving to be found on 'Coming On Strong'. 'You Ride, We Ride, In My Ride' is Will Oldham cruising with his crew after a night on the piss, with what Joe calls UK garage polyrhythms and Alexis insists is actually a disco bassline. 'Shining Escalade' meanwhile is an auto-erotic phantasy about the SUV of the same name, with Alexis playing straight man to Joe's daft flights of fancy. This is a situation found throughout the record; Alexis high reedy vocal and often deadly sincere words, juxtaposed with Joe's browner, slightly ludicrous baritone, pointing us towards the more playful elements of Hot Chip. And, in truth, they are both meaningful and meaningless. At the same time. They like to sing sweetly about aggressive situations, and make jokes about things you really should cry about. 'Coming On Strong' is, like the man says, chockfull of more ideas than you could satisfactorily identify, many of them purely signs and ciphers for the participants' own delight. Thankfully, it functions first and foremost as a pop record, albeit the decidedly odd one hinted at in the first sentence. Hot Chip are: Alexis Taylor (vocals / keboard) / Joe Goddard (beat master / vocals) / Owen Clarke (Keyboards ? guitar) / Felix Martin (drums / MPC) / Al Do It (guitar). (0) Comments

MuSiK: ... Posted 11/13/2006 3:03:52 AM Onward and Upward with Hot Chip Joe Goddard (the low one) and Alexis Taylor (the high one), the main men behind London’s addictive, laid-back electro-soul outfit Hot Chip, have something on their minds. Call it a sort of metallic indie disco, soul-fed and calibrated with a keen sense of the ridiculous. It’s all rather excellent. Hot Chip keeps telling us, through many of their songs, that they’re “laid back”. The truth is, though, that on their new album, The Warning, Hot Chip have raised the dance stakes in a way that is anything but laid back. Though still willing to deviate into soulful Kings of Convenience-style harmonies and occasionally tease the listener with tongue-in-cheek images, it’s clear from “Careful“‘s opening outburst of shuffling garage beat that Hot Chip is concerned with pushing their sound in a new direction, one that will have you moving along with them. It’s a step away from Prince and a step towards DFA heroes LCD Soundsystem, just a step, but a noticeable one. The album’s been, and is bound to be, fertile fodder for DJ remixers to take the hints of dancefloor elation and make them explicit. We’ve heard some of this already. Take a listen to the Naum Gabo remix of “Over and Over” where the banging chant has been turned into a dark, deep electro anthem. It’s the version Erol Alkan has been playing recently and with good reason, because it’s the kind of song that has an immediate and noticeable effect on a crowd. Of course, Alkan’s been doing his own remixing too. His rework of “Boy From School” is delicious/dirty enough, too, to find its way onto progressive dancefloors before too long. Part of Hot Chip’s appeal has been, and certainly continues to be, their lyrics, which combine platitudes about love with some alarmingly violent images. Notorious from their debut album was “Playboy”, with its chorus: Drivin’ in my Peugeot, hey 20-inch rims with the chrome now, hey Blazin’ out Yo La Tengo hey There is more of this on The Warning. Their images can draw a smile (as on the chorus of “The Warning”, with its patent mismatch of violence and melancholy), or cause you to stop in your tracks. I’m thinking of “No Fit State”, where Goddard and Taylor repeat a call-and-response that travels the gamut from tongue-in-cheek to horror. Goddard chants, “I’m in no fit state”. Taylor responds, “to see my fingers bleed”, or “to act a fool in love”, or “to make the record of my life”. That’s Hot Chip for you. But it’s when Hot Chip drops the irony and lets the listener into its empty world that the songs hit hardest. “And I Was a Boy From School” is the most resonant song on The Warning, with an effortless, Morrissey-like chorus and the swirling subject of failed love and emptiness. “(Just Like We) Breakdown” is all melancholy vocals of existential loss with a round synth line echoing the melody. The obvious single is the superb, banging song “Over and Over”. After you’ve heard it twice, each new spin is an exercise in exquisite suspense—waiting for the buzzing guitars of the chorus, then waiting for the buzzing tune that takes it to another level about 3:45 in. It’s the most obviously DFA cut on the album, but you won’t be able to help chanting along: “Over and over… Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal / The joy of repetition really is in you.” There’s one essential difference between Hot Chip and more mainstream peddlers in remixable electronic music. Whereas bands like Decoder Ring or Postal Service stick to this conventional build to transcendence, Hot Chip is happy to wander off in a totally unexpected direction, mid-song. It’s perhaps best illustrated on “So Glad to See You”, which starts with a texture like a drawing-room version of Decoder Ring’s “Fractions”, but veers off into beatless, meandering harmony. On another example, “Colours” morphs from a pulses of single notes into a kaleidoscopic soundscape and then into a sunny dance number, like Kings of Convenience DJ Kicks-d up. That’s why this music is both charming and interesting, and why you can listen to it many times over without the songs losing their appeal. The Warning shows us a Hot Chip both familiar and unexpectedly progressive. If you like your dance music intelligent but still accessible, with soulful harmonies and cheeky lyrics that surprise you with moments of deep feeling, this record comes highly recommended. (0) Comments

MuSiK: Hot Chip from U.K. Posted 11/12/2006 3:02:28 AM ThE wArNiNg Excuse me sir I'm lost I'm looking for a place where I can get lost I'm looking for a home For my malfunctioning being I'm looking for the mechanical music museum This is a warning I'll spell it out for you For you This is a warning I'll spell it out for you Excuse me miss I'm a dog on heat I'm a complicated being With love songs to eat I'm a poor, starving baby who can march all night I'm a mechanical music man And I'm Starting a fire Hot Chip will break your legs Snap off your head Hot Chip will put you down Under the ground Excuse me child I am trying to see all the colours of wonder your brightness can be return to nothingness enjoy just might be right but prepare yourself for a mechanical fright This is a warning I'll spell it out for you For you This is a warning I'll spell it out for you For you Hot Chip will break your legs Snap off your head Hot Chip will put you down Under the ground Excuse me son I'm found I'm looking for a place where I was once found There's nothing in a world where the melody is broken There's always some way to make a silence be spoken HoT cHiP 2006 (3) Comments