"Whereas a band like Primal Scream simply want to BE The Rolling Stones for one album, then King Tubby on the next, and Royal Trux on another, we prefer to make references in miniature to the spirit of the records and performances we love and admire," says vocalist/keyboard player Alexis Taylor.
"We might apply an interesting approach to recording that we have learnt from an artist, but with a different set of aesthetic principles. So traces of RTX, Anti-Pop Consortium, 'I'm Your Man' era-Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, MadLib and Will Oldham, for example, may all be somewhere in one song, rather than becoming the blueprint for an entire album."
The crux of all this, though, is the dynamic tension between the sheer respect for the production techniques of, say, Darkchild on Brandy's 'What About Us?', and a very English (and, some might say, white) need to tell it a little more like how it is. So, on the Neptunes inspired 'Playboy', you get the aspirational ghetto stylings of a Hype Williams as re-shot by Mike Leigh, with Hot Chipper Joe singing about blazing Yo La Tengo from his Peugeot as he tools round Putney with the top down. 'Pathos' is a word that springs to mind not for the first or last time while listening to 'Coming On Strong'. But Hot Chip are nothing if not funny, although it's safe to say they are pretty deadpan in their humour.
"It should sound packed and be brimming with ideas, like 'Pet Sounds' or 'Paul's Boutique'," says Alexis before tracing the roots of Hot Chip's sound to the interplay between his naivety and Joe's knowledge. And this is the way it seems to go. Hot Chip say they have between 10 and 15 songs on the go constantly, recording everything they play together and then painstakingly piecing together the best elements into a new whole, which often bears little relation to the source material. "Like Public Enemy," they say by way of example.
Unlike most of their heroes and role models, however, Hot Chip prefer things to be slightly off or too loud or in some way odd, and set great store in the accidental nature of recording. Perhaps it is this that gives them the slightly homemade feel that permeates the whole 'Coming On Strong', and makes it an album so high on charm.
The party sounds that intersperse the Tom Tom Club-by 'Beach Party' are more back-garden barbeque than the primetime Prince which inspired them, and are deliberately designed to evoke innocence rather than more Bacchanalian pleasures. Elsewhere, home itself is never far from centre stage, whether it be the bereft rooms and empty refrigerator of 'Crap Kraft Dinner', or the quiet domestic tragedy of 'Baby Said'. "Baby said she wanted adventure / I said, baby, the outside world's not safe / We should sit down".
Hot Chip are:
Alexis Taylor (vocals / keboard) / Joe Goddard (beat master / vocals) / Owen Clarke (Keyboards / guitar) / Felix Martin (drums / MPC) / Al (guitar)
