Hot Chip

‏Despite having released five albums of indie dance pop bliss since 2000, Hot Chip are Pitchfork Fest virgins. And there is no better opportunity to cut the ribbon than with the release of their newest album, In Our Heads. Building upon the success and fan base accumulated on the strength of four consistently solid albums, In Our Heads is more of a meandering journey through a synth-pop jungle than previous albums ­­— which relied more heavily on catchy hooks. As the record’s title predicts, In Our Heads keeps a more introspective, dreamy quality than its slightly more bombastic predecessors. In some ways, the album was designed for live shows, never forgetting the power of a slow build. In Our Heads opens up into a sort of light buoyancy which lends itself towards improvisation and thus feels more like a jam band than the static robotics one might expect from the realm of electropop. (Saturday, 7:25-8:30, Red Stage) –text: Hilary Telford

Friday, 6-8

The Black Keys, Hot Chip, Chromeo, Jamie Lidell, and Erol Alkan will be performing at Lollapalooza 2010 between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. on Friday, August 6.

THE BLACK KEYS
Hot on the heels of last year’s hip-hop-flavored BlakRoc project, Akron, Ohio’s own Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney (a.k.a. The Black Keys) have released Brothers, the duo’s sixth full-length album and third release for the Nonesuch label. As with 2008′s Attack & Release, Brothers is another rich collection of amped-up, modernized blues tunes chock-full of swing and soul. Largely self-produced, the album features Nicole Wray’s sweet ‘n’ sultry backing vocals, more of Auerbach’s higher-pitched neo-soul singing, a musical arrangement seemingly pulled straight out of the early Wu-Tang catalog, and even a short but sweet stoner rock instrumental a la Clutch. Issued in May, Brothers is also the band’s highest-charting album yet — clocking in at number three on the Billboard chart with 73,000 copies sold in its first week. It seems The Black Keys’ dues to the blues have officially been paid in full. (Friday, 6-7:15, Budweiser Stage) –text: Mike Scales–photo: James Carney

HOT CHIP
Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Owen Clarke, Felix Martin and Al Doyle make up the permanent forces behind the English band Hot Chip. Since their formation in 2000 they have blessed the music world with an atmosphere of electro-pop indie bliss. The band received critical acclaim for a string of EPs prior to 2004’s Coming on Strong, their first official studio album. Following a safe yet steady album came 2006’s The Warning, their first album for a new DFA Records/Astralwerks collaboration which consisted of unforgettable singles that could be found on just about everyone’s “dance party” playlist. Their 2008 album, Made in the Dark, took a romantic turn due to Taylor’s recent marriage yet was also quite reminiscent of The Warning. Arguably their best album to date, the 2010 release of One Life Stand features a more polished and consistent Hot Chip to envelop the summer air. (Friday, 6-7, Parkways Foundation Stage) –text: Ariel Marko–photo: Bevis Martin + Charlie Youle

CHROMEO
P-Thugg (Patrick Gemayel) and Dave 1 (David Macklovitch) make up the Canadian electro-funk duo known as Chromeo. The two met in high school and famously describe themselves as “the only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture.” With a repertoire consisting of undeniable dance beats and charmingly smooth lyrics, it looks like the joke is on us. Their 2004 debut album, She’s in Control, initially established and launched Chromeo’s career. However, after a three-year break the duo found their true claim to fame with 2008’s danceworthy Fancy Footwork, reaching number 11 on the “Top Electronic Albums” chart and winning the mtvU Woodie Awards for “Most Original Artist”. A third helping of Chromeo, Business Casual, will be released on August 17 via Atlantic Records. They may not be the most famous act playing Lollapalooza this year, but are certainly amongst its most fun. (Friday, 7-8, Adidas Mega Stage) –text: Ariel Marko–photo: Matt Barnes

JAMIE LIDELL
If George Clinton and P-Funk somehow ended up in a sandwich with the late Michael Hutchence, it would be called “the Jamie Lidell”. One listen to “I Wanna Be Your Telephone” and you’ll agree. However, the British Lidell is more than funk; he’s soul too, easily turning back the clock with songs like “Multiply” and “Compass.” If he were to belt out a cover of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” no one would be surprised. (Friday, 6:30-7:30, Sony Bloggie Stage) –text: Lisette Medina–photo: Eva Mermandel

EROL ALKAN
Mash-up trailblazer Erol Alkan is responsible for igniting the London indie electronic scene and bringing it to the epicenter of nightclubs across the country. In other words, the DJ/producer is legendary and probably wins for moving the most people to the dance floor. Remixing songs by Hot Chip, Peaches, and Justice, there’s no question as to why he’s won numerous “DJ of the year” accolades and cements the dancin’ shoes on everybody’s feet. (Friday, 6:30-7:30, Perry’s) –text: Angie Martin

Hot Chip

The best part [about touring] is doing the shows and making a lot of people very happy for a short amount of time.

story by Jodi Root
photo by Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle

Al Doyle may be LCD Soundsystem’s touring guitarist, but that’s just his part-time job. His full-time gig, as one-fifth of the Grammy-nominated electro-pop/dance party sensation Hot Chip, is keeping him more than busy these days. On Hot Chip’s recently released One Life Stand, Doyle recorded guitar, bass, cello, synthesizer and lastly, (but quite hardly leastly), the flugelhorn. Doyle was kind enough to chat with Chicago Innerview in order to shed some insight on his love for Twitter, his new favorite acts and life on the road…

Chicago Innerview: What’s your favorite part about being out on the road? What’s the most difficult part?
Al Doyle: The best part is doing the shows and making a lot of people very happy for a short amount of time. Our shows have been going very well; we just enjoy playing live and we always have and the band is sounding really good. The worst part is the obvious thing of being away from your family, being away from home, that sort of thing. I’ve been playing with LCD Soundsystem sometimes as well; it’s a major touring band and it’s just something you get used to.

Chicago Innerview: If you had to spend an evening covering one artist’s material, who would it be? On the flipside, if you could choose any artist to cover your material, who would you pick?
Al Doyle: Brian Eno. He’s quite a good one because you could do all the different things he’s produced or collaborated on, so that gives you a wide group of music to choose from. But to have somebody cover us? Probably Black Sabbath — that would be quite good.

CI: You’ll be playing the Riviera in Chicago this April. When you’re here, do you think you guys will have a chance to hang out in the city?
AD: Yeah, we’ve been out and about in Chicago quite a few times. We always like going to this guy Chris Ware — comic artist, graphic novelist — who’s a Chicago resident. Quite famous, kind of, at this comic book store which is fun to go to. I think Chicago is one of those towns where you can basically kind of walk around a little bit, which is more of interest. So yeah, we’ll get out and about in Chicago again.

CI: With online platforms like blogs and MySpace, how do you think the internet has affected your music?
AD: You’re able to get feedback immediately on everything that we do. There’s been a lot of times, I’ve been running this constant search on Hot Chip on Twitter where you just kinda see people’s euphemisms, a lot of times they can be very personal about us, like what we look like or what they think our intentions are. You can just respond to them straight away and a lot of times they are quite surprised that you’ve responded at all. It just reminds people that we’re normal human beings.

CI: Are there any new artists you think our readers should be on the lookout for?
AD: We just finished doing a U.K. tour with this Norwegian band called Casiokids that not too many people know about in the States. We had a really great time with them and the music was excellent. There’s another artist that collaborated with The Knife on this opera called ‘Tomorrow in a Year’ and her name is Planningtorock. She’s going to have an album hopefully coming on DFA with four to five songs produced by Felix and quite possibly one produced by James. It’s just really, really good; she’s an amazing vocalist with really good pop songs and quite strange, very heavy kind of atmospheric styles.

Hot Chip :: with The XX :: Riviera :: April 19.

Hot Chip

I think people have this weird view of dance music being this thing that everybody has dreadlocks and they have glow sticks and they go to these strange clubs that look like the future – and that really doesn’t have anything to do with us.

story by Garin Pirnia
photo by Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle

In a genre in which the majority of music is recursive, inventive U.K. electro-pop quintet Hot Chip continues to find a way of generating both catchy dance beats as well as integrating emotional depth and warmth through their lyrics. Their stripped-down and R&B-influenced full-length debut, 2004’s Coming on Strong, was released on the periphery, but two years later they upped the ante with the exquisite The Warning — which garnered the band a Mercury Prize nomination and introduced them to American audiences. The Warning’s layered rhythms and shifts in tone on songs like “Boy From School” and “No Fit State” helped make it one of the best releases of 2006.

This February, Hot Chip released its third proper record, the much-anticipated Made in the Dark, which retains elements of their previous effort while adding a fresh coat of veneer over the songs. “Ready for the Floor” injects bouncy basslines, “Wrestlers” offers emotional depth and throws in a Willie Nelson reference, and “Hold On” invigorates with disco-funk fusion. Even though they didn’t release a new record last year, Hot Chip has been keeping busy with other projects. In 2007 alone, they curated K7 Records’ DJ Kicks series and recorded the new song “My Piano” for the release. Remixes for Ladytron and Junior Boys also surfaced. This winter, the band even posed for Playboy’s music issue, fully clothed of course…

Chicago Innerview made a transatlantic connection with Hot Chip multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle (who also plays guitar in the equally excellent LCD Soundsystem) and spoke to him about Hot Chip’s new record, America versus the U.K., and making the girls weep.

Chicago Innerview: How would you classify your music?
Al Doyle: Rock and pop. It’s in the rock and pop section of the music shop.

Chicago Innerview: Would you say it’s dance?
Al Doyle: No, I wouldn’t really say it. We’re a band and we’re doing music you can dance to if you want to, but you don’t have to. It’s just pop music with verses and choruses, mostly. I don’t mind what people call it. They can call it what they fucking want to.

CI: Do you think there’s a big difference between American and U.K. pop music?
AD: I suppose the American market is quite heavily dominated by hip-hop and by this slightly commercial rock music you get over there a little bit more than in the U.K., perhaps. That kind of music is still popular over here, but we have a slightly more diverse market, especially in Europe, there’s more of a dance music scene as well. It’s a slightly different audience, but I think it’s increasingly becoming more similar to the crowds you get in the U.K., especially on the coasts. It’s kind of strange because America is known for bringing techno and house out of Chicago in the ’80s. I think people have this weird view of dance music being this thing that everybody has dreadlocks and they have glow sticks and they go to these strange clubs that look like the future — and that really doesn’t have anything to do with us. I think maybe some people are slightly confused by that aspect of what we do sometimes. It’s mostly maybe indie kids and some older people that see Hot Chip as being a throwback to other music, bands like Devo or Brian Eno’s band.

CI: Were you guys surprised of the crossover success that The Warning had in the U.S.?
AD: It happened very gradually. It wasn’t one big surprise. We worked really hard and we toured a lot and got a lot of support from the label and from radio stations. We had a lot of support from the online community and people talking about it and getting quite excited about it. It was something that sort of had a life of its own. I would’ve been disappointed if we hadn’t gotten a few people over there because we worked quite hard to get a lot of exposure in America.

CI: Do you think people in America react differently to your music than in the U.K.?
AD: I think people have taken us to heart a little bit more in America in the way we wanted to be regarded. In the U.K., there’s this sort of indie pop celebrity culture over here that we find quite difficult to deal with just because we’re all quiet types and we don’t get involved in the tabloids and what goes on over here. I think people, the press, are frustrated by it. We’re quite hard to categorize and deal with in a straightforward way. People have to actually do some fucking work if they want to get some information about us. It’s lazy journalism basically in the U.K. There’s a little bit in America as well, but people seem to be open to listening to the music…I’m not just saying that [because I’m talking to you].

CI: Did you feel any pressure to have Made in the Dark be as good as The Warning?
AD: No pressure. We don’t really work like that. We write music all the time. It’s a continuous process. When one album’s finished, we’re already onto the next one. It’s not something like a cigar-chomping label boss that sort of says, ‘Come on guys, get into the studio and crank out some more hits.’ We just do it. It’s what we’ve been doing for the last five years. We have our own internal pressures trying to write music, which is just a constant thing.

CI: There seems to be a progression from your first album to the current album. Was that a natural or conscious progression?
AD: We got more stuff now that we try to use it all to our get money’s worth out of it. We got better using some of the gear. I think Joe [Goddard], who produces most the stuff, he would fully admit that he didn’t know really what he was doing when he was starting out with an album like Coming on Strong. Part of the charm of that album is it has its own thing going on. It would be weird to deliberately not learn about the business, which is making music and using your instruments and getting better at producing. I think it’s a natural thing to go that way. Also, on the new album, there are three to four songs that are very stripped back and are recorded in quite a similar way to the sort of more mellow songs from that first album and very kind of restrained. We kind of still do it, it’s just got a little more polish and gloss on it — which might not be a good thing, but the songs pass through so many stages they just sound a little more produced. The flip side is that we’ve always got our live shows

CI: What do you bring to your live performance that’s different from your recordings?
AD: It’s just a different thing by definition. The recordings are very dense. It’s very hard to replicate them in an accurate way, so we don’t really try. We cover our own songs in some way and do different versions of them live. It’s a much more lively, rowdier, raucous experience that’s quite enjoyable to watch because there’s five dudes that look physically different onstage. It’s sort of a party vibe. I’ve never seen that show. Everyone seems to smiling. I did see someone crying the other day — this really strange scene where I was really fixated on this couple. This guy with a baseball hat, and he seemed to say something to this girl and she got really quiet and she totally burst into tears. I didn’t know if they’d broken up or what. It was really strange because we were playing our last song of the whole show and there was a massive everyone going fucking crazy and I literally could not stop looking at it. It’s like, ‘Oh God, I think she’s alright.’ But that’s unusual. Normally, it’s people jumping around.

Hot Chip :: with Free Blood :: The Vic :: April 17.