Stumbling across Joe Goddard lugging about a basket filled with nothing more than an oversized Kinder egg in the Easter aisle of a neighbouring supermarket is about as surreal as southwest London synth partisans Hot Chip get tonight. Not that that’s particularly detrimental, considering there was a quite recent era in which the good ship Hot Chip sailed all too close to the Bermuda Triangle of genre irrelevance that’s since swallowed the likes of Justice and Little Boots, devouring their capricious electro-light and smothering it beneath an ocean of indifference. Bolstered by live drums and the aestival Caribbean chimes of steel drums, they’ve unapologetically retrieved that retro-soul edge showcased throughout debut long player Coming On Strong, enrapturing for over an hour of ethereal indulgence. Bobbing about acquiescently like a buoy off the coast of Bournemouth, Alexis Taylor has finally become the flouncing front man he practically assured never to become, directing a baying throng that complies without a speck of hesitation in bellowing back every line in pure, disjointed phonetics. From the opening 70s sheen keyboard plonks of Hand Me Down Your Love, live strikingly reminiscent of the purple prose of Prince Rogers Nelson, globules of sweat slip from nasal regions onto t-shirt slogans bathed in irony below, obviously in lieu of their now-ubiquitous geek-chic. Under an illuminated Zeus-like bust, latest record One Life Stand (from which the troupe draw heavily tonight) is electrified pulsatingly, like lonesome swans frazzled in park ponds by earthed toasters and with Taylor, Goddard and Al Doyle splitting vocal duties three-ways, their caterwauling choruses enchant like a Pimlico Opera prison musical. Alley Cats oozes with a calming centre softer than some of Albarn’s most tender moments, Over and Over is as insistently captivating as ever and Hold On transforms Magazzini Generali into a unified mass of flailing limbs, writhing in synchronicity. Take It In sounds forceful enough to physically rip tendons from the sturdiest of cartilage, before funk guitar shimmies sew everyone back up together again, to jolt about profusely to a contemporary chorus teleported directly from 90s pop purgatory, whilst Boy From School reinstates itself as a transcendental ballad of kitsch computerisation. A euphoria permeates the reverence with which the Hot Chip spectacle is received and as the quintet swagger out from behind their Micro Moogs and Casio keys, it’s become acutely axiomatic that a beatific phenomenon is nothing short of how they’d be inscribed on slabs of stone were a modern day Moses ever to preach the chivalrous laws of their good boys-gone-seraphic strobe sensualities.
Live: Mesmerising Over & Over & Over & Over & Over. Hot Chip, Magazzini Generali.
Stumbling across Joe Goddard lugging about a basket filled with nothing more than an oversized Kinder egg in the Easter aisle of a neighbouring supermarket is about as surreal as southwest London synth partisans Hot Chip get tonight. Not that that’s particularly detrimental, considering there was a quite recent era in which the good ship Hot Chip sailed all too close to the Bermuda Triangle of genre irrelevance that’s since swallowed the likes of Justice and Little Boots, devouring their capricious electro-light and smothering it beneath an ocean of indifference. Bolstered by live drums and the aestival Caribbean chimes of steel drums, they’ve unapologetically retrieved that retro-soul edge showcased throughout debut long player Coming On Strong, enrapturing for over an hour of ethereal indulgence. Bobbing about acquiescently like a buoy off the coast of Bournemouth, Alexis Taylor has finally become the flouncing front man he practically assured never to become, directing a baying throng that complies without a speck of hesitation in bellowing back every line in pure, disjointed phonetics. From the opening 70s sheen keyboard plonks of Hand Me Down Your Love, live strikingly reminiscent of the purple prose of Prince Rogers Nelson, globules of sweat slip from nasal regions onto t-shirt slogans bathed in irony below, obviously in lieu of their now-ubiquitous geek-chic. Under an illuminated Zeus-like bust, latest record One Life Stand (from which the troupe draw heavily tonight) is electrified pulsatingly, like lonesome swans frazzled in park ponds by earthed toasters and with Taylor, Goddard and Al Doyle splitting vocal duties three-ways, their caterwauling choruses enchant like a Pimlico Opera prison musical. Alley Cats oozes with a calming centre softer than some of Albarn’s most tender moments, Over and Over is as insistently captivating as ever and Hold On transforms Magazzini Generali into a unified mass of flailing limbs, writhing in synchronicity. Take It In sounds forceful enough to physically rip tendons from the sturdiest of cartilage, before funk guitar shimmies sew everyone back up together again, to jolt about profusely to a contemporary chorus teleported directly from 90s pop purgatory, whilst Boy From School reinstates itself as a transcendental ballad of kitsch computerisation. A euphoria permeates the reverence with which the Hot Chip spectacle is received and as the quintet swagger out from behind their Micro Moogs and Casio keys, it’s become acutely axiomatic that a beatific phenomenon is nothing short of how they’d be inscribed on slabs of stone were a modern day Moses ever to preach the chivalrous laws of their good boys-gone-seraphic strobe sensualities.
