By Rachel Nichols  |  Send to Friend

Riding the wave of their latest studio release, Hot Chip has been on the move for quite some time. They’ve also slipped into their own private sub-genre that has a lot of people freaking out. The last time a band had recruited this much genre-bending power was probably when the hippies took over Primus and in turn, lost many of their initial flannel fans. Yes, a Hot Chip show will bring out those crazy neon- clad Aoki laptop freaks, the charming I-have-kind-of-a-mohawk art lesbians with too many facial piercings, there will certainly be the misguided Phish heads waving their hands in front of them like a beautiful psychedelic rainbow and of course, the ever-present legging-clad suburbanites.

Beyond their unexplainably diverse fans one thing remains true about Hot Chip, they give a shit about their music without taking themselves too seriously. Let’s look at this sub genre of music, electronic-dance-rock if you will, most of it is garbage that somehow generates interest. This is mostly in part to it's exclusive and impossible sexy power to be played by celebrity DJ's and it's ability to create the soundtrack to afterparties. That is all very well and good, and something I understand being a young thing living in the city trying to get mine when it comes to hitting the town. What many don’t know is that Hot Chip is the uterus from which much of this hysteria has emerged, who unlike their descendants, keep changing and growing so they remain just ahead of the pack. Hot Chip is also a band that has the bragging rights of being a rare triple threat who can deliver on a record, knock ‘em dead in the clubs, and kill it in concert.

 

 

Coming off of a 29-festival summer run the band has just returned to the states for yet another tour. Amazingly, Owen Clarke the band’s guitarist and king of synthesizer sounded excited about this leg, “We’ve pretty much been on tour since 2004. Did lots this summer, two more festivals here in the states, and that may be it for festivals for the year, but we never say never.”

Hot Chip are real movers and shakers, creating the new-age arena rock almost single-handedly and not letting an opportune moment pass by while on tour. “We’re constantly working. While we’re away we’re making music. Joe especially likes to work on the move, he has a little production area in the back of the tour bus.” For a genre of music that usual feels lazy and made without heart Hot Chip has the ability to make club bangers that have staying power.They may just be one of the hardest working bands in the biz, even if they are working hard at aping other people’s shit, juicing it up and giving it back to us on a big pink plate.

Clarke shared, “I looked on Wikipedia recently because I was curious and I saw that we’ve done over 5 million remixes, so maybe we should calm down on that for a bit and try to focus on some of our own stuff.”

Slow down on the remixing? Never. The boys plan on releasing a new type of remix. “We’ve got a nice collection of remixes we’re going to release called Re-Made In The Dark.” Aping their own album, brilliant. Also in the works is a collaboration with Vampire Weekend and plans to return to their London studio in February. “For a new album we may try using some instruments that are newer to us, with stranger sounds, so maybe that will have a telling effect on the next record. Alexis has mentioned something about a steel pan, Al’s been learning to play banjo, and we’re working with a new drummer Leo Taylor for more live drums, synthesized drums as well as program drums.”

Whatever the five piece make of their experiments with new sounds it’s sure to be go over in an enormous way. You’ve got to have love for Hot Chip, who have conquered one of the most difficult genres and keep on hitting us in the face with it.

 

Guest Illustrator Biaggo Comeriato plays in The Human People and will graphic design the shit out of you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music Playlist at MixPod.com