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 Hot Chip are an English electropop band. They have released four studio albums—Coming on Strong, The Warning, Made in the Dark and One Life Stand.

History

[edit]Formation

Hot Chip formed in 2000, though members Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard had previously worked together and had been at Elliott School in Putney, London since 1991. In an interview, Goddard jokingly compared early Hot Chip releases to sixth-form poetry with acoustic guitars, although an interest in dance music rhythms and electronic experimentation is present in even the early recordings and releases such as the 'Mexico EP'. The current line up was completed when occasional collaborators Owen Clarke, Felix Martin and later Al Doyle joined the band full time in 2003.

[edit]Coming on Strong

After years of self-releasing records, they signed with Moshi Moshi in 2003 and released their debut LP Coming on Strong in 2004. During this period, they were joined by Felix Martin and Al Doyle. They started working on their second album and signed a UK & US record deal with DFA Records and EMI. DFAand Astralwerks released their debut album for the first time in the US in late 2005.

[edit]The Warning

In 2006, Hot Chip released their second album, The Warning. Now signed to EMI in the UK, the band gained more mainstream appeal as well as the attention of critics. The album was shortlisted for the 2006 Nationwide Mercury Prize and was Mixmag's Album of the Year 2006.^[1] This album spawned also two UK top forty singles: "Over and Over" in March 2006 and "Boy from School" in May 2006. "Over and Over" received attention for its music video, which was directed by Nima Nourizadeh, and was also named as the best single of 2006 by British music magazineNME.^[2]

[edit]Made in the Dark

The band released their third studio album, Made in the Dark, on February 4, 2008. The first song to be released from it was "Shake a Fist", which was released as a limited one-sided 12" in August 2007. The second release was "Ready For The Floor" in January 2008, which reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In order to promote "Ready for the Floor", the band appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in January 2008, and Joe Goddard appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks on 31 January. In February 2008, the band performed on the American talk shows Jimmy Kimmel and Carson Daly. On 7 May 2008, the group performed their third single, "One Pure Thought", on Radio 1's Live Lounge. The hypnotic clip for "One Pure Thought" was selected as one of the best music videos of 2008 by AllMusic.com.

[edit]One Life Stand

Having completed a world tour in February 2009, Hot Chip returned to London and began writing and recording their fourth album, One Life Stand.^[3]

In early 2009, Alexis Taylor told NME that the band recorded new songs including "Alley Cats", which the band played regularly while touring in 2008/2009. Initially, Taylor hinted that the album was going to be "a bit calmer this time" in comparison to Made in the Dark with songs that are "more mid-tempo and disco influenced", although the two tracks released prior to the album, "Take It In" and "One Life Stand", suggest that it will be more upbeat than first suggested, and may be more influenced by early house music ^[4]. Alongside the regular band members, Hot Chip collaborated on several of the album tracks with the drummerCharles Hayward from This Heat and Camberwell Now, Leo Taylor, drummer from the London based band The Invisible and the Trinidadian steel pan player Fimber Bravo.

One Life Stand was released on 1 February 2010, and Hot Chip announced a new world tour in 2010.

[edit]Tours and appearances

Hot Chip Performing on stage at the Leeds Academy

During live performances, Hot Chip reinvent their studio compositions to form what has been described by Glide magazine as "heavy beat-driven improvisation[s]" that create "an atmosphere of excitement, energy and the unexpected."^[5] Festival appearances include V Festival 2008, Dour Festival, Glastonbury, Treasure Island Festival, Roskilde festival, Sónar, Benicassim, Electric Picnic, Bestival, Lovebox, Bonnaroo, the Reading and Leeds Festivals, the Big Day Out, Melt! festival, T in the Park, Summer Sundae, Splendour In The Grass, Lollapalooza in 2006 and 2010, the Brazilian Tim Festival in 2007, Oxegen in 2008, Coachella in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and Austin City Limits in September 2008.

During a performance at the Glastonbury festival on 28 June 2008, Hot Chip played their cover of "Wearing My Rolex" and were joined onstage by Wiley. They also ended a number of sets in 2008 with a cover of Prince's (popularised by Sinéad O'Connor) "Nothing Compares 2 U." Returing to the festival in 2010 they performed a version of their song "I Feel Better" with a steel pan ensemble known as "Steel Harmony".

In the latter half of 2010, having toured extensively in the USA, Japan, Australia and Europe, the band united with long term collaborators and friends LCD Soundsystem to play shows in the US and the UK, including a joint headline show at Alexandra Palace in London. In Salt Lake City, UT, on a one-off headlining show on 19 Oct 2010, they debuted a new song, "Ends of the Earth," for an upcoming album. Al Doyle said at the concert that the new album could be released in 2011.

This was followed by a series of shows in South America and Mexico, including debuts in Chile and Colombia. Their final show of the "One Life Stand" tour was at the YOTA Festival of Light in the Russian city of St Petersburg on December 4th 2010.

The band now plan to take a break from touring and work on new material, as well as concentrating on DJ-ing and other side projects. The band is also known for its DJ talent; they have released several mix CDs and mixes for national and international radio stations and they all DJ regularly worldwide.

[edit]Other recordings

Hot Chip released a DJ-Kicks compilation album in 2007, which included a new song called "My Piano", also released as a 12".

In 2008, the band released an EP which included collaborations with Robert Wyatt. Wyatt sang and reworked versions of three tracks from Made in the Dark, and the Hot Chip with Robert Wyatt and Geese EP also included a remix by Geese, a string quartet based in London who have regularly contributed to Hot Chip's recordings. Alexis Taylor also released a solo album in late 2008 entitled Rubbed Out, which saw him focusing more on the fundamental sounds used by Hot Chip leading to a more downtempo and bluesy album than Taylor's works with Hot Chip ^[6].

In 2009, a new DJ mix album A Bugged Out Mix by Hot Chip was released on the Bugged Out label, a two disc album with disc one a collection of club and dance tracks mixed by Martin, and disc two a "house party" mix put together by Goddard, Taylor and Clarke. The artwork was made by Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle.

Other releases in 2008-2010 included a collaboration with Peter Gabriel on a cover version of the Vampire Weekend song Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, many remixes including the song "Babongo Tribe Remix" for the Survival International charity album, Songs for Survival and a cover of Joy Division's "Transmission" to the War Child charity album, Heroes. A collaboration between Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard and Bernand Sumner entitled "Didn't Know What Love Was" was released in October 2010.

[edit]Members

• Alexis Taylor – vocals, synthesizer, guitar, percussion, piano
• Joe Goddard – vocals, synthesizer, percussion
• Owen Clarke – guitar, bass, synthesizer
• Al Doyle – guitar, synthesizer, percussion, backing vocals, steel pans (Also plays guitar, bass, synths, and percussion for LCD Soundsystem)
• Felix Martin – drum machines, synthesizer
• Rob Smoughton aka Grovesnor - Drums - rejoined the band in 2010.