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Hot Chip: Freakout/ Release review – trying hard to be funky | Musique Non Stop

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Sunday, August 14, 2022

Hot Chip: Freakout/ Release review – trying hard to be funky

(Domino)
The British dance-pop favourites make forays into the wilder side, but their mellow tempo prevails

Indefatigably pleasant, Hot Chip have long specialised in steady-state club pop, powered more by melancholy than abandon. The title track of their eighth album, the promisingly named Freakout/Release, declares a shift towards proper shit-losing catharsis. “Wild, beast, freakout, release!” growls a vocoder as some stark electro-funk lurks beneath. A distorted guitar line completes the picture of a band throwing well-appointed tastefulness to the wind, querying their own love of music into the bargain. Co-producers Soulwax are audibly in the studio, egging them on.

Spoiler alert: it’s false advertising. Sure, some strides are made towards messiness. On Down, the disco-funk album opener, singer Joe Goddard swaps his usual evolved restraint for something like tongue-in-cheek libidinality. But Hard to Be Funky, a lovely, downtempo glide that features the guest vocals of Lou Hayter, once of New Young Pony Club, nails Hot Chip’s dilemma with self-deprecating humour. “It’s hard to be funky when you’re not feeling sexy,” Goddard notes. “And it’s hard to feel sexy when you’re not very funky.”

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

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