Video of the Moment #1053: Hot Chip
By Mary Chang on Wednesday, 28th November 2012 at 6:00 pm
Like football and Hot Chip? Then this new video for ‘Don’t Deny Your Heart’ from the dance band is tailor made for you. Watch it below.
For editor Mary's coverage of SXSW 2013, go here.
Don't forget to like There Goes the Fear on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! ~TGTF HQ xFYI our fearless editor Mary is currently on holiday (sort of, she says, since she'll be working on blog-y things for most of it) in Britain and the site won't be as updated as frequently until she returns stateside after the 23rd of May. Don't worry though, we'll be busy this month going to festivals (Liverpool Sound City, the Great Escape) and loads of great content is on its way!
Like football and Hot Chip? Then this new video for ‘Don’t Deny Your Heart’ from the dance band is tailor made for you. Watch it below.
What happens when you squeeze Hot Chip in the back of a black cab? You get this video for a unique version of ‘Now There is Nothing’ (including Alexis Taylor playing an acoustic guitar!), from the band’s current album ‘In Our Heads’. Watch it below.
Hot Chip go all ’80s in their new video for ‘How Do You Do’. Surfing, skateboarding, line dancing and creative use of the green screen, it’s all here folks. Watch it below.
Here’s the new video from Hot Chip for ‘Look at Where We Are’. If you’re expecting a stonker of a dance tune, sorry to disappoint you but this is one of those Hot Chip slow ones. You also see the inside of someone’s head. Sort of. Not how you’re expecting it, either.
Their new album ‘In Our Heads’ is out now on Domino; you can read Braden’s review of it here.
On the back of their new album ‘In Our Heads’ (Braden’s review here) on their new label Domino, Hot Chip have announced a tour of the UK for October. Ticket sale begins tomorrow (Wednesday 20 June). Support will be Disclosure and Django Django on selected dates (see below).
Monday 8th October 2012 – Norwich UEA (with Disclosure)
Tuesday 9th October 2012 – Leeds Academy (with Disclosure)
THursday 11th October 2012 – Birmingham Academy (with Disclosure)
Friday 12th October 2012 – Glasgow ABC (with Disclosure)
Saturday 13th October 2012 – Manchester Academy (with Disclosure)
Monday 15th October 2012 – Bristol Academy (with Django Django)
Tuesday 16th October 2012 – Southampton Guildhall (with Django Django)
Friday 19th October 2012 – London Brixton Academy (with Django Django)
Hot Chip aren’t your average band. Their members appear to be cropping up everywhere (2 Bears, New Build etc) but the band are consistently putting out a record every two years. They’ve been everywhere, with everyone and gained notoriety as both a good band and exciting live band, but they’ve never stepped out of everyone elses shadows for long enough to shine at their top billings (LCD Soundsystem immediately spring to mind). Furthermore they’ve had plenty of success without ever actually having released a great album (‘Over and Over ‘and ‘Ready For The Floor’ carrying them through.) So what does album five have to show?
“Remember when the people thought the world was round, the world was round” opens Alexis Taylor on ‘Motion Sickness’. It’s light, it draws you in and then it bursts into a chilled track that just oozes summer for a whole 5:21. Then comes what sounds like a 2 Bears single in the form of ‘How Do You Do?’. Alexis’ vocals are what turn it from the kind of thing that could be dropped in a club to something that could be played almost anywhere, and that’s what makes Hot Chip the band they are; they’re likeable and inoffensive.
This doesn’t make them a great band though. Inoffensive is the stuff of Train and Eliza Doolittle. Likeable is the kind of thing that got Gary Barlow and Will Young into the dreams of middle aged Britain. Herein lays the problem for Hot Chip. “Within In Our Heads”, there’s a lot of decent music. ‘Flutes’ for example, is enjoyable, but not speciall. Those aforementioned opening two tracks; great if you want to chill out in a field all summer but by the time you get down to ‘Now There Is Nothing’ though, you’ll be iPod scrolling as you finish off that bottle of Koppaberg.
There are of course exceptions on both ends of the scale. If you’ve seen the video for ‘Night and Day’ (below), you’ll know that its full of everything that could have made Hot Chip a big band for all the right reasons. It’s borderline bombastic, in your face and huge sounding, without crossing the line to being a Calvin Harris track (minus the Justin Timberlake style “You know I’m thinking about you”). On the other hand, you’ve got the tedious “Look at Where We Are” and ‘I Have Always Been Your Love’. They’re probably intended to show the deeper side of the band, but they come off as nothing short of mind-numbing.
Hot Chip are not an average band. But if they keep on like this, they’re in danger of sounding like one.
6/10
Hot Chip’s fifth album ‘In Our Heads’ is out now on Domino Records (their first for this label).
There Goes The Fear is where we tell you about the latest tours, gigs, and music we love and think you should too.
We love music that has its heart on its sleeve, tells a story, swims around our head all day or makes us dance like idiots.
The blog is edited by Mary Chang, who is based in Washington DC. She is joined by writers in the UK and America. It was started up by Phil Singer in Bristol, UK.
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