26 MusicWeek 25.05.12 DANCE SPECIALHOT CHIP
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They’re electronica pioneers, dancefloor fillers and NME darlings. And now they’re back on an indie…
TALENT BY RHIAN JONES
A THE CHIPS ARE UP
lexis Taylor (second from right, above) of Hot Chip really has done the music industry rounds – and not just behind
the decks. Starting off his career working at Domino writing press releases and doing mail orders, the electronica group’s first record Coming On Strong was signed with another indie, Moshi Moshi. Hot Chip then signed with a major, EMI, for
their breakthrough – The Warning. Three albums later and after years of jetting
around the world courtesy of EMI’s tour support, he’s come full circle and signed the band’s next “house-inspired, garage-inspired and disco-inspired” offering In Our Heads at the same place he started, Domino. Despite the change, Taylor’s got little
bad to say about working with a major: “EMI didn’t pose any problems, they weren’t sort of the classic major label thing that you might hear about.” Although he admits other artists at the time
may have taken internal precedence (namely Robbie Williams and Coldplay), Taylor says Hot Chip could still creatively thrive at their former home: “I think they could tell we were our own band and we weren’t really competing with the other things they had so didn’t really need to mess with it.” Here we quiz him on Domino, new album In Our Heads and being influenced by R Kelly…
Why did things end with EMI? We finished our deal with Parlophone and EMI and felt like it was time for a change - to not be with a major and to see if it could work in a
ABOVE Heads up... Hot Chip’s fifth studio album In Our Heads is out on June 11
different way. Domino’s always been a label that we’re interested in, we respect them and like the other records they put out. It just made a lot of sense really.
What inspired the new album? Not one specific thing, lots of different things from track to track. There was quite a big kind of Nile Rodgers, sort of Chic/Sister Sledge influence on Joe [Goddard, vocals, synthesizer, percussion]. Prince and R Kelly were quite significant influences on individual moments. There’s bits of garage here and there and there’s house music but I’d say as the songs were written they kind of created their own sound world.
What kind of sound can we expect? It’s sort of a mixture of house-inspired, garage- inspired and disco-inspired pop music that’s quite colorful sounding. It features a quite eclectic mix of passion and unusual instrumentation that is fairly kind of melodic and direct sounding.
What kind of unusual instruments? Things like Coca-Cola bottles and beer draughts used as percussion - like Michael Jackson did on Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough - vintage synths from the 70’s, steel pan, marimba. So kind of a mixture of things we haven’t used before like marimbas and vibraphones, banjos but also things that are always there in Hot Chip records, you know, drum machines, keyboards, oh and a sample of some Buddhist monks, chanting.
Buddhist Monks? Chanting? Who came up with that idea? Joe, he found that, it’s from an old record of
literally Buddhist monks’ chants and that’s on the song Flutes.
Could this album bring you a new fan base? Well I hope so. I think the first single Night and Day is quite different sounding from other singles out there at the moment. I think also that it’s a record that is quite varied, there’s quite a lot in there, if there are people that enjoy albums, you know listening from start to finish, we’ve tried to make something that works like that.
How is it different to the albums you’ve released before? We worked in a studio that we’d worked in only with side projects before which helped us to have a sound that’s quite kind of uniform. It’s helped gel all the sounds together. I think it’s meant that by having an outside engineer working with us we are able to concentrate a bit more on really hearing what’s working and what’s not and strip things down to their core essential ingredients. So I think it's more focused as a record but I also think it's quite a kind of obvious continuation on where we got up to the last time, it's not like we suddenly just decided we were into something brand new and you know, threw out the rule book.
Do you think that’s the main difference to your past releases, an album that comes as a package? Well we’ve actually always tried to do exactly that but I suppose maybe we've just done it better this time. That’s what we hope at least.
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