We all love new music, don’t we? I mean we love all sorts of music, but there’s something vital about discovering a new band, or getting into a new band, and when you do that, nothing more so than a new album coming out. And the biggest rush of all is when you get into a band and you claim a first full album as yours.
And that’s Yard Act for me. I’ve been into them since the dismal, outerworld days of lockdown. But not quite from the beginning. I wasn’t a ground zero, I didn’t (like my friend David) see them upstairs at the Lexi being boisterous and lairy to 40 Londoners in 2021, as we were all emerging from all that. No, I got into The Overload in 2022, after it was out, like the man that arrives at a house party at 4am when all the best fun’s been had. I wasn’t deterred though, and made it my own that year. I delighted at its rawness, its very English, very northern wit, its ability to project the best and worst of this country into the open: all the wit and humour, the have-to-laugh-or-you’ll-cry bleakness of its songs, Brexit overtones, con-men, kitchen-sink scenes and booze, boredom, and moments of enlightenment, all delivered in a mostly-spoken, part-sung laconic drawl of lead singer James Smith over a boisterous jangle of guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.
Of course this sort of thing’s been done before, not least by other Mancunians (if those from Warrington would be ok with that label), but this felt fresh, and most of all, unlike much else that was coming out of that strange two years. There was a ‘one last chance’ narrative – the members of the band all having been relative failures in other outfits – that felt like it was an all-or-nothing record. Forget the focus groups, the second-guessing of what the public wants, just make this music you want, cobbled together in lockdown recordings, and then watch it mushroom out in a world of no gigs, no parties and no in-store performances. It’s a very modern tale, but I couldn’t stop coming back to it, from early singles Fixer Upper and Dark Days, through the bleak, booze-filled world of The Overload and Dead Horse, Rich’s biting humour, Witness’ shouty post-punk whizz and softer, more thoughtful tracks such as Tall Poppies, and the closer, my track of the year on the pod, 100% Endurance. All of these tracks weren’t just audio delights, but there were a succession of clever, funny and though-provoking videos, that provided a visual narrative that lifted things further. Its’ like a ready-made band falling out of the sky into your living room.
And I was hooked. It was brilliant coming into something so fresh and new and that felt like yours. That’s the holy grail. So once 2023 rolled around, I sat around desperately hoping for new music to emerge. And finally, in July, we got it. A hell of a new single: an 8-minute banger, The Trenchcoat Museum, that leant much further towards things like LCD Soundsystem, and now things got interesting. Talk about announcing your next move in a way that’s memorable. Add an Arthur Baker remix (of course I bought it on vinyl) and hopes were high.
But what would the album sound like? When would it arrive? Early 2024 was the news, as new singles arrived with Dream Job’s unashamed pop and a sound that stepped up more than a few gears and I was on for the ride. I could see how it may have pissed off the Yard Act OGs and purists, but what band should stay in their lane for the sake of their first music? That always feels like a slippery slope. I’m here for the next steps. Find me a Radiohead fan that thinks everything after The Bends was shit, and I’ll show you someone that needs to move on with their life.
The singles came thick and fast ahead of 1st March. The growling, Beck-like Petroleum, telling its tale of Smith’s onstage semi-meltdown after touring burnout. Then We Make Hits, harking back to the genesis of the band between Smith and bassist Ryan Needham, poking fun at going for the mainstream while unapologetically wanting to be a hit. And finally, before the album landed, When The Laughter Stops, with the band lining up with Katy J Pearson to riff once more on the challenge of giving art all you can, gleefully suggesting you then know ‘my chance was fully blown’.
The album is more than just a single narrative, but the looming expectation of fame and hits brought by a surprise debut success is a seam running through it. Smith’s wrestling of a career of relative failures with unexpected success and the pressure to follow it up, deal with the industry (We Make Hits) while balancing a family and new fatherhood (The Undertow, An Illusion). The wry, bleak humour that underpins his lyrics – balanced between semi-truthful autobiography (Down By The Stream, and the whimsical, kitchen-sink Blackpool Illuminations), surrealist idealism (A Vineyard For The North) and biting self-criticism and state-of-the-nation observations (Grifter’s Grief, Fizzy Fish) – may feel by some to disarm some of the bleaker narratives, but humour is at the core of Smith and Yard Act’s modus operandi. Speaking to NPR’s World Cafe in March, Smith stated their music “always starts with us trying to make each other laugh. Humour is the only thing that matters in life. It’s a universal thing, finding humour in situations. Seems very strange not having that in music.“
There’s an interesting debate to be had about humour in music – especially when it comes from a working-class source – and snobbery over how its’ received, perhaps not nearly as worthy as ‘serious music’. I think there’s a place for it all and I Yard Act’s voice in this is very refreshing to me. Yes, there’s a layer of self-deprecation at play, but that’s also a very English trait, and so much of the biggest reflections on British society and all its issues comes from satire, in particular. It really hits a nerve, the confluence – for me – between music, politics, comedy, art and culture.
The album’s production is far more maximal than its predecessor. It’s good to see the band develop, and in enlisting the talent of Remi Kabaka Jr., sometime member and producer with the Gorillaz, there’s a lovely synchronicity at play, too. Smith talked to DIY’s Before They Knew Better podcast and how he was a fan of the band in the post-Blur period, so working with Remi was a lovely way the circle closed. There’s a real freedom to the record, something band have openly acknowledged, and it’s a melting pot of influences and styles – in a Fanzine the members quote everyone form Glen Campbell and Electric Six, to Congolese drum music and Korn to the White Stripes and Rick James – where I hear a lot of Beck, 90s hip-hop (especially prevalent in some of the skit-style samples and intro-outros across the album), Pulp (on Undertow), Phoenix, and of course a big dollop of LCD.
It definitely enjoys a lack of categorisation, and to me it’s much more of a vibe than a sound. I like how it dips in and out of changes of pace, feel, style, and while there’s a lot more layers to the music – strings, extra percussion, backing and guest vocals – Needham’s distinctive basslines and Sam Shipstone’s growling licks still sit very much at the core of what the band’s sound is. I think lyrically, thematically and musically it’s a big leap forward. The programming works for me too: while it took a while to get my head into the album, having been so familiar with the singles, it wasn’t a case of front-loading the big records, and I like how the pace or energy never really settles. I find myself going straight to the next track in my head, a TINH Guy ™ trope but always a good sign.
I find it a very much complete album, and one that sounds absolutely outstanding live. Like Young Fathers, I was blessed with a live experience before writing this, and unfortunately I did it without any of the other podcast crew. At the Manchester Apollo – where Smith touchingly explained he’d been dozens of times to see bands that he loved himself, but never in his dreams or Yard Act’s plan did they ever expect to be on the stage themselves – they tore through much of Where’s My Utopia with glee and the energy of a band coming home. While they reside in Leeds, Smith grew up in Manchester, so it was a lovely extra level to what was one of the best gigs of the last year for me. All the songs are faster, more energetic and more urgent live, but with a keyboard and sax and two backing singers – one of whom, Daisy Smith, is the striped-topped and black-bobbed star of the new album’s videos – the sound is more elastic, more ambitious and the band feel like they’ve grown into their expanded universe with ease. The new tracks sounded amazing, and closing with an onstage rave to Trenchcoat Museum felt a fitting end to the night.
What will everyone else make of it? I am honestly not sure. I’m sure there’ll be highlights but after voting it my top album and track of 2022 on my tod, I don’t have hopes they’ll feel the same way as me. I know David will love some of the tracks – there’s too much crossover with artists he loves not to – but I’m less solid on Nolan and Joey.
There’s only one way to find out though….. Brothers, do your worst!
They’re back! The singles are really great. There’s layers here. There’s bits of LCD, Talking Heads, Beck, and yes, I’m getting into overhype mode but what the hell, I can’t wait for the new album by Yard Act.
January is a funny time of year for music. Many albums wanting to be big in 2024 have either come out already or are holding off. It’s hard to pick albums to review unless you’re looking back before you’re looking forward. And in this episode’s case, we wanted to pick a critically lauded album that we passed over. So after a sift through a few lists we weren’t really sure. I’d never landed with Lankum, SZA was, sadly, out in 2022! In listening through tracks linked to the various lists, we were all mesmerised by A&W and after that we sort of got pulled in. And it’s not a decision I regret. It’s a pretty stunning piece of work, even if it’s imperfect.
I’ve never been a true fan of Lana Del Rey but I’m definitely an admirer. Of how she is, of how she operates, her ability and insistence on doing this her way. I was on board for Video Games (who wasn’t?), but perhaps my experience is influenced the way many others’ is. Is it made for me? Is there too much artifice? It’s definitely not style over substance, but there’s also a definitely imperative style that sets its into its own sphere, and I just don’t know if that’s ever really landed with me. Perhaps I’ve never given it enough time, either. She’s an artist on that list of people I really know I should’ve devoted more time to over the years, who friends and critics have pointed me at her, but it’s just never locked.
And obviously I’m wrong. She is not an artist that’s liked. She’s adored. Her fans are devoted, her songs held like torches for her acolytes. She moves them and that’s a magical place to be in the universe. Because what got us into music? What made us love artists? How did that music speak to us and make us feel? And how intense did those feelings burn? It’s what makes music music. It is what makes us love it. It’s why we do this thing. So that devotion, that desire, that’s what it is all about. But delving into Lana’s world – not to mention her huge back catalogue (Ocean Blvd, as I’m going to abbreviate it to from now on, is at least her 10th album, depending on how you count them) – is daunting. Both because she is such a big artist, and also because there’s so much context to each record, something that I just don’t have. So many of the callbacks, references to previous records, break-ups, themes, will largely sail over my head. Coming to a new album from such an established artist can be a bit, well, cold.
But it’s also because LDR’s world is uncompromising. Her position as a woman in music – as any woman in any position – is precarious. She’s held to a ridiculous standard. She is critiqued for being strong, she’s critiqued for looking good, she’s attacked for looking good, for not looking good. Being Lana seems a pretty awful place to be sometimes. Yes, she’s also harnessed this, leant into the darkness – themes of death, abuse, misogyny and the male gaze all loom large even to the arms-length fan – but it remains a big shadow over her work, and the more I read the more I admire her for refusing to compromise on what she wants to do, even as it (surely, I don’t know) must take a toll living in that universe.
The lyrics, the world she paints is bleak, playing up against the world she lives in. Pushing back against that onslaught of criticism, making it front and centre of her work, that brutal glory, turned against its creator. Ocean Blvd – at my newbie eyes – bares this beautifully and powerfully. At its high points, it’s breathtaking. It’s bleak and catches in the throat. There’s a frankness and personal feel to it, and yet it’s cryptic and full of contradictions. But it’s a fascinating and engaging listen. Having been the first album of hers I’ve knowingly listened to in full it’s hard to compare against, but I realise I’ve underestimated her and feel a bit foolish for that. I loved Video Games, her laconic but powerful delivery, the whole 60s-tinged femme fatale style, the heavily stylised videos, all overflowing with ideas. It just sort of passed me by as I went for the familiar, and the new, that just never really landed on her records.
Yes, I’ve not connected with her music as I have with others but there’s something very real going down. The lead single, A&W (the root beer for sleeve-friendly abbreviation, but really the devastating American Whore) is at the vanguard. Firing back at critics’ lazy views, owning the pejorative personas they paint her with, and turning it back on itself. Opening with piano chords and guitar, her vocals feel at their most invasive. Almost deliberately light and sunk into the midrange but it’s all more powerful for it. And you can’t get away from the chorus: ‘‘it’s not about having someone to love me anymore / this is then experience of being an American whore”. Christ. And like all great long songs, it’s a shapeshifter. A second part that drops into electronic, elastic bass and sharp percs, and twisted vocal phrases, taking on a different power altogether. The final stanza, with it’s repeated phrases, looking back to a lover that wanted to only be with her when he was high, both calling out his behaviour, but also perhaps her self-destruction.
There are moments all through the album of breathtaking nihilism, none more so than the title track’s ‘open me up, tell me you like me, fuck me to death, love me until I love myself’ is her withering beauty (yes, there is a tunnel, I’ve discovered, but it’s closed). A line that catches, but also that feels both exhilarating to hear, and bleak to listen to again and again. There’s a fragility to her music that plays against some of the more belligerent, combative tones of her output.
Another standout for me was with Father John Misty. They seem very apt bedfellows – and I’ve since found out this is her third collaboration him – though FJM’s dripping cynicism seems a mite more laconic and detached, where Del Rey’s feels more pointed and sharpened and real. But the story – I think – about an affair with a married male musician, feels both hopeful and doomed to fail.
There are a lot of memorable other moments here, in fact the collaborations across the album stand out: from John Batiste’s harmonies and vocals on Candy Necklace, the haunting Paris, Texas with SYML, and lament of Bleachers on the late-album Margaret. I’m still not sure what to make of Peppers (which features Tommy Genesis) but they all stand out in their own way. There’s engaging use of electronic flourishes throughout too, not just on A&W, but also memorably on Fishtail, which provides colour alongside the piano and guitars that dominate the album. I’m also intrigued by the Judah Smith interlude. The modern preacher, its message seems at odds with LDR’s fanbase (she’s been in his congregation), especially the LGBTQ+ element, when Smith’s historical views on non-Christian ‘lifestyles’ are pretty prejudiced. Perhaps she’s focusing the words on herself. As ever, it doesn’t feel as direct or clear as it could be. Perhaps Del Rey enjoys the confusion.
But let’s also talk about the elephant in the room. The album is long. Really long. And we all know our struggles with long albums. Not just The Ascension. Also Dragon New Warm Mountain. I have my ‘60+ minute hip-hop album problem’ too. It’s not just the cliched attention span issue, but 40-50 minutes is my sweet spot. So 78 minutes I have truly struggled with. I haven’t even got through he whole thing in one go. Partly just logistics, but also just having little full hour windows or more to listen in my life. So it’s a fractured experience. And one I’ve not managed to break.
I think, inevitably, the album sags. On their own, all the tracks have merit, but I have ended up going to remove 3 tracks from it: Kintsugi and Fingertips, which don’t seem to lend huge contrast, and also lately the Jon Batiste Interlude, which is striking, but I’m not sure it feels like a hole without it, and at least it’s a 62 minute version that’s more possible to digest.
As a whole, I’m not sure if I’ll love this album, but I’ll definitely come back to big chunks of it. There are songs on it too striking not to be remembered, but will it spark an overdue love affair with Lana? That’s probably optimistic. But she hardly needs my affirmation: she’s got all the dedication she needs from people with much more invested in her music than me. And that’s a pretty good thing to exist.
Sometimes albums fall into your lap and other times you scrape around. In April, Young Fathers was a slam-dunk and is still one of my favourite albums of the year. In late 2022, Hot Chip could be my only choice. Yet in summer 2023, I was caught between a few stools. Albums coming up from Blur (mid-July) and the pop of Girl Ray (early August) fell just outside the window of opportunity. In the end, it came down to two: Yuksek’s sun-drenched Dance O Drome and the leftfield synth nihilism of Creep Show. I love Yuksek, and have done for years, and it’s going to be one of my good times albums of the year, but in all its brilliance, I’m not sure how much we’d have to say about a chuggy, summery disco-pop dance album. So, Creep Show it was.
But Creep who? They weren’t a band I was aware of, but even after my ears were pricked by the involvement of John Grant, on further inspection it became more of a ‘why on earth haven’t I heard of Creep Show before now? The four piece reeks of musical invention, with Grant nestling next to Wrangler, a trio made up of Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder, legendary synth warlock Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards, and Tunng’s Phil Winter. When TINH worlds collide…. And when I gave it a listen it really did tick a lot of my boxes immediately: rich John Grant vocals: check (see Matinee). Synth weirdness: check (try Moneyback). Sparse arrangements: check (The Bellows). Bleak lyrics: check (Bungalow). Jaded worldview: definite check (hi, Wise). It really got its clutches into me from the off, and while I was still trying to decide on the August album, when I woke up one day humming its tracks it was all the indication I needed.
So what do you get? It’s just the right mix of sleaze, perfectly pitched arrangements and an intriguing blend of obtuse lyrics, with sonic obliqueness that just seems to hang together. And given its members, you can hear real craftsmanship underneath the headline-grabbing songs. It’s also worth noting Yawning Abyss is their second album. The first – Dynamite – came out 5 years ago, and is distinctly more wonky than this. It’s definitely worth a listen just to see the pathway between the two, as while hardly a soft sonic experience, Yawning Abyss is certainly more approachable.
The band came together off the back of a night celebrating 40 years of Rough Trade at the Barbican, where artists new and old performed (Hot Chip and Scritti Politti were also on the bill) and while Grant and Mallinder already knew each other, it all evolved from that night. There’s a nice alchemy across the four too, with Grant not just committing vocals – and Mallinder accompanies him in the arrangements too – but also keyboards, with drums, bass, and synths across Winter and Benge, all concocted by the latter’s array of vintage gear at his Memetune Studio in Cornwall. But it takes more than just warm 80s synths and drum machines to make good music but – in Benge’s words in an interview around their debut, “you turn on some of these things they kind of put out half a track before you manage to turn it off again [laughs] and then you refine it and add bits or take stuff out” – there’s a nice unstructured element to how the music can come together. But make no mistake, this album is no ramshackle affair. It’s tighter than a new violin string, with lush layers that envelop and a committed ability to fuck up Grant’s voice as much as possible. Because, while it’s a loose lineage to his (in my opinion) brilliant solo albums Pale Green Ghosts (made with Icelandic dance-poppers Gus Gus, and one I brought to this pre-pod blog back in 2013) and Grey Tickles And Black Pressure, melding Grant’s silken voice with electronica, this is a notable step further away from that.
There is a concerted effort to break up the richness in his distinctive vocals, a wish to remove any smoothness that may have sounded too ‘right’ over some of the slick, gossamer-thin percussion and melodies and warm synth notes and it’s something that marks out the album as sounding a good stride away from just a John Grant solo project with some cool musicians behind him. It’s also helpful that Wrangler are already a fully-formed outfit, and you can hear that in the quality of the arrangements that sound so well-honed. Take Moneyback as an example. This dystopian paen to fraud, lies and pyramid schemes roughs up the vocals, distorts the perfection. Matinee almost fires a gun through them, vocoded and then stuttered into sections, and it’s a clever gambit, as it adds them as further melody and rhythm, and shows there’s much more scope to music when you are willing to mess with the normal (something we also found pleasing in less extreme ways in EBTG’s Fuse when Tracey Thorn’s voice was also manipulated).
Is it a concept album? Perhaps, perhaps not. But its loosely-formed focus on a near-present world where the darkness is embraced (try the title track’s jaunty “Come jump with me into the maw of the big, yawning abyss / Don’t be silly now, you know you’ve always wanted this”) is just another means to give a wide pallet of material to work with. Its world is much more Back To The Future 2 meets Black Mirror than the cool futurism of Blade Runner. There’s a bit of joy to the embracing of the underbelly or society’s less alluring landscapes. Grant and Mallinder both sound like they’re having a hell of a time living in it too.
It’s a neatly-boxed 9 tracks and 41 minutes. And doesn’t really take any missteps. Away from the more sleek tracks, and away from the rest of the album, Yahtzee could grate, but it’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the album, where all the motifs are taken to extremes, Grant’s vocals smashed to bits with distortion and effects, as he chirps about playing ‘peeknuckle’ (whatever that is) while “I loosen your buckle” and Yahtzee “while the Nazi’s tear our nation apart”. Cheery! The only part that feels slightly self-indulgent is the six minutes of Steak Diane, which while it’s really listenable low-slung sleaze, perhaps could be half its length, but it also slips by each time when I listen to it, and the reprise of the Bellows turns around into the opening track and we go again. In Joey’s words ‘I find I’m into my second listen so easily’.
I’m interested to see what the rest of the gang make of it. I’m fully into ‘singing it when I wake up’ territory, and that is always the sign of an album that’s got its hooks into me. Its crept up on me without me putting up a fight, and I now really enjoy coming back to it, even as it fights with Blur, Yuksek, Julie Byrne and the rest. I can see bits of it really clicking with each of you (bleakness, edgy synths, hi Joey, strange pop perhaps David, the dancier stuff with Nolan) but I’m not sure if you’ll feel the same as I do. But isn’t that the joy of this all? All hail Creep Show!
How to feel old? Realise that hip-hop turns 50 and that when it was born you weren’t even (quite) alive. But it feels pretty incredible to be celebrating a genre of music so wide and vast that is just as strong as a pop-cultural touchstone, a movement, a social bedrock and so much more. So we had to try and pick something out ourselves to celebrate it all.
It shouldn’t be any surprise to listeners of the podcast that I am not the biggest hip-hop head of the four of us. In fact if Joey, David and Nolan are all dipping for the line, I’m still sauntering around the home straight. But this doesn’t mean I don’t love it: I adore so many cuts from its five decade history. But while everyone else was getting into Nas, Public Enemy, NWA or KRS-One, my nerdy teenage self was, well, into pop music, indie and guitars. Yes, I saw the odd track on Top of the Pops, and the Chart Show, even the safest on Now albums (though White Lines is gloriously on Now 3, which I have on vinyl at home), but like dance music, it wasn’t until I went to university that this really changed. So for one, I was a late starter, and for another point, for a long time I was a singles man. So many bangers, so much great tracks through the late 90s and into the 2000s, but did I even own an album before the new millennium? No, I did not.
Given we are all choosing our favourite hip-hop album for Episode 34 of the podcast, unlike the other four, narrowing it down to even ten, I was struggling to even pick 10 I owned and knew. We’ve reviewed some brilliant, epochal albums on the blog before: Kendrick’s To Pimp A Butterfly is a modern classic, RTJ’s RTJ4 was the first episode of what would end up as the podcast, 3 years and counting. We’ve covered Rapsody, Mac Miller, Skyzoo, Apollo Brown, Little Simz, Gangstarr, N.E.R.D, Loyle Carner, Tribe…. in fact I’d go as far as saying that this blog and podcast single-handedly got me into hip-hop albums so amen to that!
But picking one that came to me via elsewhere, nominated by someone else, never felt right, however much I loved it (Tribe’s glorious comeback We Got It From Here was a flirtation though). So I had to go back to the slim pickings and actually work out what I liked in the end that was truly ‘mine’. There were some great albums, just not many! I loved Jurassic 5’s J5, a 1998 classic that I still play now. But while it was fine, it wasn’t one that would want me reaching for the repeat button. Of course, by the 90s and 2000s, I owned classics like 3 Feet High, It Takes A Nation Of Millions, Midnight Marauders, and I’d got and loved Beastie Boys long players, but I wanted to pick one I was there from the start with, and in the end, with my love of sample-based, Native Tongues-adjacent rap, it could only be Q-Tip’s The Renaissance, from 2008.
Now, if you asked me what my two favourite hip-hop acts were, it would be easy to answer: De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. They were incredible musicians, they went against the grain of so much hardcore and hood/gangsta hip-hop that didn’t really connect with me. But I remember seeing De La and that departure from what I thought hip-hop was, as they played with samples, conscious lyrics and it changed things for me. Tribe were not far behind. But in 2008, Q-Tip, their beating heart, released his second solo album: The Renaissance. I pretty much fell in love with it at the time. Melodies and hooks? Tick. Samples galore: tick. Q-Tip’s distinctive flow all on his own? Yep. Funk? HELL YEAH. And then some perfectly pitched guests – D’Angelo, Raphael Saadiq, and (even) Norah Jones. BINGO.
That was enough to get me in, but why is it so good? Because whatever others think – and it’s definitely considered a classic – there’s so many reasons to adore this record. For one, it is so optimistic. It arrived after Obama got into the White House – even with a sample of one of his speeches on Shaka – and seemed to evoke so much of what we all hoped would happen (and that really didn’t). Contrast it with the fantastic comeback from Tribe – We Got It From Here in 2016, to see just how far the world had fallen. From the opening bars of Johnny Is Dead, with its cascading guitar chords and that so distinctive flow (‘What good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn’t it it?’, indeed!) breaking into the harmonies in the chorus. It is simply life-affirmingly good. I challenge anyone to listen and not come out of it feeling better.
It just has so much life, energy, positivity and goodness. The bumping Won’t Trade, trading on soul vocals and Gettin’ Up’s sun-drenched vibes (with that great Black Ivory Sample) it just has you nodding and wondering where this album has been all your life. Across 46 minutes (my perfect hip-hop album length, no hour plus stuff, this is just tight and fizzes along) it goes from introspective break-ups (You), funk and soul half-songs (WeFight/WeLove), the Can-sampling ManWomanBoogie’s head-nodding brilliance (giving props to all the great artists along the way), Move’s all-out maximalism sampling the Jackson 5, and slower jams Life Is Better and Believe. Arguably its strongest effect is from the Dance On Glass, (picking up the hypocrisy of the industry, ‘ The people at the label say they want something to repeat / But all my people really want something for the streets’) with its first minute of just pure unaccompanied flow.
For an album that’s 15 years old, it still absolutely pops. There’s so much to enjoy about it, and it’s so musical, some of the tracks almost songs in their own right, even if its’ a guest vocal or sample, and with Tip let loose to do what he wanted. It’s an artist still at their top of their game, and enjoying the freedom of a solo project. It came with a lot of pressure and history, given a decade after his solo debut, Amplified, and label-denied false starts (the jazzy Kamal the Abstract from 2001 was a niche masterpiece for me too), the Renaissance came with a lot of expectation and delivered. It was when Tribe were on hiatus too, so for a creative like Q-Tip, it must’ve been a real release to put something out so good.
Talking about it ten years on, in an interview with the NME, he mused about where he was and what the album meant: “The Renaissance was about dealing with classic colloquialisms about self.…. I wanted the music to have a sound that stood the test of time, it was all about our humanity. It felt like I had re-entered hip hop. At the time I exited, music was vastly different.” In 2008, it was all about Kanye, Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, a world from Tribe’s heyday. But he delved into not just some of the usual subject matter, but Renaissance was a much more personal album that I’d expected: “You” was hard to go through, but easy to recount. It’s much like going through a break up and telling your boy what happened as therapy. That was to one of my ex-girlfriends, actually.” So it had layers beyond the samples, or the flow. And that’s why I still come back to it.
It’s been a total joy to get back into it. I must have rinsed it 20+ times in the last 6 weeks and I could let it go back round again and again. While I struggle to stick with hip-hop albums, this feels so easy. It has so much of everything I love about the genre in it, and it has an infectious positivity and outlook that seems to be in scant supply 15 years later, with so much of hip-hop on a much darker tip than the time of Tribe and De La (not that they didn’t talk about reality, of course). So it’s a ray of sunshine, a classic artefact of the best of hip-hop, a slice of pre-Trump goodness we could all benefit from a listen to.
It seems mad that we last saw a Jessie Ware album back in Episode 2 but here we are and it is well worth the wait. Disco / pop / house venn diagram goodness and this, Begin Again, is right up the top of the best tracks on the new album. We missed you!
I find it staggering that it’s a whole 9 years since we covered Young Fathers’ debut Dead on the pre-podcast Blog days. In fact, it feels like a different lifetime, like so much before 2020 does. And yet almost a decade on, once I saw Heavy Heavy was dropping into my podcast slot, it didn’t seem like any other album would get a look in. But as soon as I picked it, I had to ask myself: just how much Young Fathers have you really listened to in the last few years? What do you know about them? Because it’s funny how much you like an artist or act and realise that outside those headphones you couldn’t even name them all.
The answer wasn’t quite as embarrassing as I’d quite feared, but it was much more odd tracks over supporting whole albums, which suddenly felt like I’d missed one of the most fascinating bands around completely. This thought would solidify over the next few weeks until it felt like a millstone. Despite this, one of the big reasons I’d chosen Heavy Heavy was just how much I’d loved the initial singles that appeared over the past 9 months. Geronimo arrived in July last year and as well as listening to it regularly, Spotify seemed to want to push it in my direction, something that puzzled me, (and there’s a wider discussion on the algorithm to be had later on). It made my end of year long list in 2022, with its quiet whispers sitting atop a brass-driven motif, before the discordant harmonies drew me in as it broke into song. A song, on its own, unwrapping the mystery of Young Fathers’ own kaleidoscopic sound and unique character in one, three-and-a-half minute epic.
Three more singles followed, in that strange streaming-era way that means you know a big chunk of most albums before they land, and each was different in its own brilliant way, from the bleak beauty of I Saw, evoking discarded immigrants (perhaps?) or – according to the band (from a recent Guardian interview) about how we all watched Brexit unfold and did, well, nothing. One song, many meanings. Follow-ups came from across the music spectrum: Tell Somebody’s swelling, orchestral lament and Rice’s loose, percussive chorus of voices. Of course, in isolation they felt like four great singles, but somewhat disconnected. But then, that’s how Young Fathers operate. Nothing is (as in Rice, the album’s opener) ‘in an orderly fashion’. They thrive on genre-bending records, jumping between styles even within a single chorus. But then, when it’s part of a whole, it all seems to fall into place.
Once thing I knew we’d get in comparison to some of the longer recent albums was brevity, focus and power. Heavy Heavy came in at 32 minutes, across ten songs. Heaven. Joey would have to get back through at least track 2 before his 39 minute walk ended! While not every album has to be 3 minute songs, this feels like a definite follow-on from their last album, 2018’s Cocoa Sugar, which saw the band make their most structured record to date, with its leaning on pop songs’ formula even as they retained their own badge. But where Cocoa Sugar was as restrained as Young Fathers get (and that word is doing a lot of heavy lifting here), Heavy Heavy has, for me, much higher highs and lower lows, musically and thematically.
Like all the best records it flies by: I’ve put it on twice many times already. But unlike some records which slip by almost unnoticed, this never fails to take the attention. In a music landscape of often rigidity – though lord knows there’s more than enough amazing music around – Young Fathers’ glorious m.o. of disregarding expectation and just letting rip – both softly and abrasively – is what marks them apart and frankly should have them even more lauded than their Mercury Prize-winning reputation deserves. I’ve listened to this album a lot, and while I have loved its sheer inventiveness, its vigour, its ability to slip between so many different colours on the spectrum, for a long while I struggled to work out how it made me feel.
Because we are all about the feels. And as I marvelled at Drum’s energy and uplifting falsetto, or Shoot Me Down’s chopped up samples dissolving into a weighty chant, or Ululation’s tribal wailing, it took me ages to land on what it meant. But now I’m there. It’s just JOY. The energy, the life that comes from this record, the way it lifts me up, you stand in its brilliant glare, absorbed, and then 30 minutes later, it’s gone. And I will sit there with a grin on my face, not sure what I’ve just listened to, what it may mean, but that I have experienced something pure. And that’s hard to pin down, and across their albums while the meaning may be elusive, even as Be Your Lady’s piano explodes into feedback, noise and a slew of vocals, I know that I am alive.
So – if we are to try while appraising this brilliant album – what the hell are Young Fathers? Song to song, it may be possible to divine something approaching genre. But nothing is certain from track to track, but it ends up feeling like it was all meant to be together. I can’t think of anyone else that really does this, though I will return to my favourite reference point: Genesis Owusu. I know we did this in reverse too, but I am now wondering how much Young Fathers he listened to? Because while Owusu has more funk and soul, courtesy of his tight musical collective, there is so much to see parallel here. But if its frustrating (not to me) for some to try and work out what this band is, it seems the music press, and platforms don’t seem to know either. People think they’re hip-hop (nope), noise (sometimes), rock (honestly). To me they are exploring the outer edges of pop music. It may not sound like a lot of pop you know, but it’s 3 minute songs, with song structure, and a group that really wants to push things to the limit, but they have a world and it’s very much their own. Even if no one can categorise it, who cares? Radio stations can’t even work out if they play them.
There is also a tangential link to Episode 30’s Rozi Plain album, Prize. While it may seem incongruous, the lyrical metaphor and opacity of Heavy Heavy leaves you searching for your own answers, as some of the best music only manages. Is Rice about slavery? Racism? Is Tell Somebody about mental health? Joy? Pain? It isn’t clear, but perhaps like last month’s album, it doesn’t really matter. Young Fathers are often elusive about their meanings, but if it works, it works? It’s refreshing not just to need to work to unpick lyrics, but to not still be sure 25 listens in.
I have also spent some time again with Dead, and their other two albums, 2015’s White Men Are Black Men Too, and the aforementioned Cocoa Sugar, and they have been every bit as fantastic as the first and newest were. Dead was – running to it last weekend – way more familiar than I’d have thought it would be. Music really does still have that ability to transport you to a time and place. For Dead, I’m not 100% sure what I was doing in 2014 when the album came out in February – probably being seasonably dismal – but an album that I remember felt way out of my comfort zone at the time, but nonetheless memorable, felt at turns familiar and also fresh. Get Up in particular, leapt out, its off-key drone still sounding really new, angry, edgy and vital. It’s a rare feat managing that after so long, but perhaps the genre-hopping/avoiding music they make means this is all the more possible. Through the albums, as a whole lineage – and I listened to all 4 in a row one Sunday – they feel so cohesive together, all this big universe that they have made their own. In a post-genre world, how does a band like Young Fathers fit in?
Finally, there’s the videos, shot almost all in non-widescreen, another incongruous but seemingly bold statement in a pushback against the general music ‘machine’. They are striking, from older ones such as Low’s washed-out colours, or the visual attack of Shame to the new album’s visceral I Saw or Tell Somebody, to the dry humour of Toy’s casting of children as leaders, despots and maniacs. As their music does, the visual medium shows us just how vibrant and full of ideas they are, making things they want, the way they want. And we can all celebrate that.
We are big big Little Simz fans here at TINH, and while we were mixed with our view of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (S.I.M.B.I.) – for me, it was a brilliant record, somewhat let down by the strange skits from Emma Corrin / Lady Di in the Crown – we all adored Grey Area for its energy, power and sheer do-not-give-a-fuck attitude (not to mention amazing flow and vibe).
And as we all got to thinking about our 2022 Top Tens, here landed No Thank You, on 12 December, to land in that strange slot of after end of year lists, but not in 2023, hence a sort of hinterland. But my god, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s an amazing work. Much more personal, and pared back than the maximal feel of SIMBI, this sees Simz and her producer, Inflo, in perfect harmony. Gorilla may be one of my tracks of the year as a late entry, and if it came out in November, it would’ve likely been in my Top 5, straight in!
It’s great to have her back, but perhaps next time, release on 2nd Jan?
I loved this ‘track’ idea when we heard it. I thought I’d have TONS of ideas. So many, that I didn’t really think about it until about 2 weeks ago, while on holiday, and realised I had no bloody idea what to do. Was it entrance to a boxing ring? The start of a film? All the tracks that first came to mind were for the end of a film (‘roll credits’) and that wasn’t the brief, though perhaps a great new one.
Then, I didn’t really feel I was doing anything original. I had a playlist/mood board, but it didn’t really say much about why or what it meant to me other than ‘wicked track’. Then I read David’s post and realised you could really run away with it. And here we are. One of my favourite tracks, yes, and possibly not as original as either Joey or David’s, but the idea came to me very quickly once I listened to it. And while there’s a bit of disconnect between the song (and its release) and my ‘entrance’, it all fits.
So, here’s my scene. Sit back, and enjoy.
[Warning: Artistic licence and a time machine required]
Location: an English boarding school in the late 80s.
Kids sitting glumly in monochrome in their form room, doing more dreary homework. Not a sound. Heads down. Too many detentions lately. Not long to bed time. Another grey day in middle class, middle England. Until….
In come the 6th formers. Bored and irritated, with some imperceptible slight. It’s time to pick on whoever’s in front of them, and in this case it’s the nerds. Always the nerds. This time it’s the 2nd years, minding their own business. But here they come, all rolled up sleeves, small-knotted ties and wispy facial hair, kings of the world, at least in their own mind. And ready for another shitkicking of whoever, because these lads are in the first XI, and nothing ever happens to them. Think the classic high school movie cliche, jocks v nerds, except extract all the US glamour, sunny climate, and general colour and mix in a tablespoon of English uptightness, a few drips of angst and the whiff of educational institutionalism and it’s about to kick off, in the most one-sided of ways.
The 2nd years are fed up. They’ve seen this movie too. There’s never a reason for a shoeing other than ‘why not’? And if they’re lucky, they’ll just get their homework spat on, chucked in the bin or their tie pulled tight so they can’t undo it. At worst, bumps, bruises, or perhaps even a broken bone, ready to be covered up with a chat to the parents from the headmaster because ‘we can’t harm our glorious (not very good) reputation’.
First a push, then someone’s dragged out of a cubicle. There’s a smirk, and the gang spreads out. Time slows down. The inevitable awaits….
BUT WAIT. One cubicle is empty. No one notices. Until now. Cue music…. Revenge is finally to be exacted.
[Sound of loud music: Beastie Boys: Sabotage]
Switch to HD. Turn up the colour. Crank up the volume. The guitar kicks in. In walks the kid that has taken enough and isn’t going to take any more. Slow-mo as the first punch lands on that entitled, smug jaw. Out cold. Everyone turns, facing their target. A lucky punch, they think, he’s toast. But it’s just the beginning.
[Sabotage continues, vocals kick in],
Like a mix of Bruce Lee’s grace and power, Arnie’s muscle and Eddie Murphy’s cool, each attacker is repelled with a mix of roundhouses, blocks, jabs. one-inch punches, in slow-mo glory, taking down the older boys that have had this coming for 5 years, treating everyone lower than them like vermin because they’ve spent their lives being told that they’re alpha males who’ll never get their desserts (and yes, they’ll all still on to to be bankers and management consultants, divorced by 35 with a head full of regret and a cocaine problem, enjoy that) but this is the day of the fightback.
In they pile to the lone fighter: 6th formers, 5ths, until the scene resembles a cartoon dust cloud with limbs flying, until a lull
[Sabotage hits 1:37. and as the melody kicks back in]
A hail of bodies fly outwards like an explosion, through windows, walls, doors, until only the hero is left standing, surrounded by his classmates, mouths agape.
He surveys the scene, no movement, brushes dust of his shoulder, and walks out into the sunshine, as the track dies out.
[END]
There you go. Let’s call it long wished-for revenge, and leave it at that.
For anyone that’s ever seen me at a Hot Chip gig (yes, even that one) and just how excited I get by that band, it’s probably about as much of a surprise as hearing I picked Metronomy’s Small World for Episode 21. But however much Hot Chip’s 8th studio album, Freakout/Release, felt like an obvious pick for me, it’s not the slamdunk that it might seem. For starters, it presented me with a quandry for the podcast: I’m an unashamed Hot Chip nerd, a lover of the band since their first album in 2004, so how objective could I be and frame this as a discussion that gave the subject its due without letting personal feelings overbear it? Also, there were other choices in play, not least the amazing Cheat Codes from pod favourites Dangermouse and Black Thought. It’s such a dazzling album with all the vintage feels, oddball samples galore, and conscious, layered flow (not to mention some amazing guests) that it’s a 2022 Top 10 shoe-in. But does anyone want to listen to 4 guys agreeing how good something is for an hour? I wasn’t so sure.
So Hot Chip wasn’t just a lazy pick, and the more I listened, the more it raised a lot of questions that are relevant to my music DNA, and why we do the podcast: how we grow up with bands (and them with us), how artists develop over the years, how and why we connect with them and the effects on music of the inevitable march of time. After all, when I’ve listened to every one of the band’s albums dozens and dozens of times (and for this album, all 8 in one day, just for research purposes!) and seen them tour every one of them since The Warning, I am probably reasonably qualified to consider those questions. To me there’s been subtle but noticeable changes in tone and lyrics that bring me back to those queries each time. For me – if we’re putting it out there – there’s 3 ‘acts’ of Hot Chip: the spiky, jolting first two albums, then an almost impeccable run from Made In The Dark, via One Life Stand, to In Our Heads, and then further shift from Why Make Sense? to the current day. From oddball nerds (a press label as much as anything, and one they probably hate) to underground darlings to a British institution with a dedicated global following. All of this despite only one UK top 10 single (Ready For The Floor) and album (Made In the Dark). Enter their first new album in 3 years, do things feel different? It’s a cliché to say lots has changed since their previous album, A Bath Full Of Ecstacy, arrived, but lockdown and the pandemic has put an indelible mark on society, so it’s not a surprise to hear the band talk about its influence on Freakout/Release and how that made them strive to search for a sound that they wanted to play live.
I probably should admit there’s part of me that connected with the band back in the mid-00s as I saw them as not trying to be cool, just doing their thing, looking like a strange collection of ‘guys with synths’ and making some amazing music, but without any real ego. I was never (am never, will never be) one of the cool kids, a perennial fan of music, DJs, art, clubs, gigs, festivals that wanted to get on the inside but was always peering (metaphorically and literally, sometimes) over the fence at the action, trying to get behind the rope. Hot Chip were one of the first bands I’d seen that looked both totally normal but also really cool, but much more like me and people we knew. I doubt they liked the ‘nerd’ tag (who would?) but against all of that, managed to cultivate a furrow that was very much their own, musically and beyond. Yes, they’ve done themes and colourschemes for some tours and albums, but a lot they’ve done just by being themselves. And how can you not be cool by playing every festival out there, DJing in all the good clubs, and seemingly getting to do it your way throughout? It’s the dream, right? (and disclosure, I’ve meet a few of them in a musical and fan capacity, and guess what? They’re lovely, sound people, so do meet your heroes, at least sometimes).
So what do we know about the album? Like its predecessor, it’s an album where the Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Felix Martin and Owen Clarke have allowed external producers into the inner sanctum, and like A Bath Full, it’s yielded interesting results that aren’t always visible at first glance. While Bath Full was lauded as positive statement on connection, joy and music’s ability to foster both of these things, (with the late Cassius and production wizard Phillipe Zdar‘s influence writ large and hailed by the band, alongside xx producer Rodiadh MacDonald) the new album feels, at first listens, as a bleaker affair. Where Bath Full wrapped up the listener in a cloud of positive warmth and gentle, existential questions, the backdrop to Freakout/Release’s creation seems to have tipped the band over into far a more introspective, fraught and anxious headspace (if the track titles were your first entry point, then you may baulk at ‘Down‘, ‘Broken‘, ‘Not Alone‘, ‘Guilty‘ and ‘The Evil That Men Do‘). But as with most of Hot Chip’s work, it’s never as binary as this, and while heartbreak preceded its recording – with long-time live addition Rob Smoughton’s near-death illness and Zdar’s passing – and global turmoil surrounded it, hearing the band talk about its making would bely the obvious assumptions that this is a bleak, lockdown album. It’s also interesting hearing Goddard and Taylor talk about the influence of live cover Sabotage over its making, something played out in both the rawer feel of some tracks and also the distorted, dry vocals used, which feels far out of the Hot Chip comfort zone.
Because while Goddard and Taylor have been open about how much the shadow of lockdown loomed over it, a two-pronged narrative emerged: the desire to make songs that they wanted to play in front of festival crowds, even if they didn’t know when that would happen, and a search for connection in music when isolation ruled our lives. Elemental stuff, and very much in tune with how I want to experience music (perhaps a big reason I have always chimed with their work). And on wading in, there are a few things that don’t feel like classic Hot Chip to me immediately: Down’s leaning closely on a sample – 1:42 into the Universal Togetherness Band’s More Than Enough – the isn’t unique (Why Make Sense’s Flutes is the obvious previous nod) to the band but having it on a lead single seems a departure when it’s so core to the song’s feel, which is as disco as they’ve ever got, and as full of Doyle’s guitar licks that it could be a different band to the likes of Shake A Fist’s jagged electronics (even though when you relisten, guitars come up a lot more than I remember across their catalogue). The title track also feels much more raw and messy than their polished, electronic pop sound, with the band passing the unfinished track through the brains of legendary duo Soulwax to get the right vibe. It’s a raucous, scuzzy, almost punky track, that seems very much at odds with the band’s sound, and, as it turns out, a real outlier. You’re left feeling it could’ve been so much more interesting to hear more of this, but would it dilute Hot Chip’s ethos so much they risk alienating the core of devoted fans that have been with them for so much of the journey? We’ll never know. But it’s a step into the unknown somewhat. And I like it.
There’s also a question about how much Goddard and Taylor’s hegemony has been loosened and how much solo and other band projects can and have influenced the band’s own output? Al Doyle’s ‘other band’ being LCD Soundsystem and the influence he’s now had on James Murphy’s outfit (writing a clutch of songs for their last album) has – to me – markedly led to his guitars and a ‘rockier’ sound come more into Hot Chip’s world in recent albums. When LCD split, Doyle and university friend Felix Martin formed New Build and scratched another musical itch. Taylor has released many keyboard and piano-based solo work and Goddard’s work as 2 Bears, and a solo album has solidified his own musical identity away from this outfit. Has a more egalitarian approach meant a richer tapestry for Hot Chip’s work, or diluted some of the magic that earlier albums found? Does the recording of Freakout/Release in Doyle’s new studio (‘Relax and Enjoy’) mean the band is more content to experiment or is that just a factor of being together for so long? This ‘third act’, from Why Make Sense certainly feels like something has changed. The question is where this leaves the band itself, and how those that buy the music feel about it.
So for this album, all isn’t quite fallen into place, for me. The problem perhaps with the programming of the album from here is that with second single Eleanor – a straight up PSB-style shimmering pop banger and earworm about love and loss – sandwiched between the two other ‘radio tracks’, it leaves the album with a challenge to maintain the momentum after 3 singles grab all the attention at the start. And perhaps this is where others have struggled with it, too. When I’ve dived in, I already know the 3 tracks off by heart so I either want to get past them to connect with the rest of the album, or when I have gone from track 1, it’s like a ‘before’ and ‘after’ between the opening stanza and the rest. It feels a particularly odd thing to do, and while it’d be reductive to wonder if there was a worry about the album’s staying power had led to this track order, I find it hard to entirely shake. And that’s a real shame, as there truly is a lot to like from Freakout/Release, but it’s hard to manoeuvre around this music ‘speed bump’ for a long while.
‘Broken’ is a beautiful song that talks about how to reach out and help someone, Taylor’s wistful vocals intertwining with the leads, and mined from real-life experience of feeling helpless at others’ suffering. It’s definitely a good example of where the band is: talking about emotion, heartache, wrapped up in lush, layered instrumentation. They’ve always done this heart-on-sleeve well, and it’s particularly well-twinned with Taylor’s vocals, but in recent albums, it’s more overt and none more so than this one. They seem ever more confident perhaps after years of doing this, to be upfront with such subject matter, even if it’s at odds with the tracks’ musical feel. This dissonance – to me – is brave, but often effective for the band (think ‘No God‘ on the previous album or ‘One Life Stand’). As a result, ‘Broken‘ isn’t a song that you’d feel would be in their early work, but there’s still a lineage back to the 80s synths that inspire them. With every album, there’s still nods to their touchstones: Prince, Kraftwerk, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout or hip-hop and r’n’b from the 90s. It’s just that with maturity and age their sound is much more layered and complex than the austere, almost angular feel of Coming On Strong or The Warning. I have hugely enjoyed this progression (however subtle) but I also feel that some of that pure dancefloor energy has ebbed away as a result. But at 47, it’s not as big an issue as it may be for trying to hold the attention of the kids, coming up from behind.
‘Not Alone’ is a great example of Goddard and Taylor’s lyrics and vocals in motion together. Ever since they started making music together at school, there’s a certain alchemy that feels very much theirs. I can’t think of another band in the UK that employs two male vocals that operate mainly in falsetto or high ranges they way they do, and it’s one reason that – despite so many claiming others sound like them – they still sound so unique to me, inhabiting their own musical space so effectively over 20 years as others come and go around them. I get that it’s also a reason that some find them grating; if it’s not a style you can get on with, it’s going to be hard to love them (like I do, at least). It’s also another track that feels quite introspective and, well, sad. And perhaps this strain through much of the record is why it may be beautiful, and may envelop in the headphones as fantastically-constructed electronic pop music, but may ultimately not quite have the propulsive zip of previous albums.
‘Hard To Be Funky’ is a track definitely I wasn’t sure of at the outset: the lyrics jarred a bit and it’s ‘Alexis’ slow one’ (think White Wine and Fried Chicken, Slush, Look After Me, In The Privacy Of Our Love) but as you get past the pace, it’s an interesting question about the meaning of ‘funk’ – music that’s so core to what Hot Chip do, and that is so associated with sex and sleaze, and how this means so many different things to so many people. I also really like how Lou Hayter comes in as a point of difference, and it’s a collaboration that just works and brings something different. I always enjoy how any band opens up to this (look at how effective Porridge Radio’s appearance on Small World worked for Metronomy). ‘Time’ is about as ‘dancefloor’ as the album gets, which is – at least partly – a shame, but I’m glad it’s on the album. It does pick up the pace where the album starts to feel a bit out of gas. Similarly, its segue with ‘Miss The Bliss‘ is needed to keep this up. It’s actually a really lyrically simple track that speaks to supporting others – again borne out of the solitude of lockdown – and feels much closer to Goddard’s own solo work than anything else on the album, even featuring Goddard’s brother and various family members in the group for the choral vocal. It’s an uplifting and sweetly personal moment.
Perhaps I can’t entirely get on board with the programming – and am unable to think exactly how I’d change it – but I do salute individual tracks. ‘The Evil That Men Do‘ is another outlier for Hot Chip: an overtly ‘political’ song about toxic masculinity and male privilege that starts as a light call-response between Alexis and Joe ‘beg for forgiveness / bear witness / be humble‘, before opening up with piano and a lovely bridge that drops into Cadence Weapon’s flow, which is another welcome collaboration. A nod back to Posdnous’ much loved verse (by me, at least) on ‘Love Is The Future‘, from Why Make Sense? With a band that’s so steeped in hip-hop as influences it’s great to see it literally land on an album, and makes me wish there was more of it in their catalogue. It’s also another example of really dry, effected vocals (with the title track) where it’s an attempt to strip back the angelic tones of Taylor past the halfway mark as the track almost splits in two as Cadence’s flow leaps in. The contrast is so strong it’s almost jolting, but it really works for me.
The album closes with two of the stronger tracks: ‘Guilty‘, which feels like a live classic already. It leapt out on first listen and still sticks out. Musing on the difference between dream and waking consciousness, it’s playful and fun lyrically ‘when you see a finish line / does it end up your nose‘? There’s a real 80s funk feel to this, and it carries into the uplifting closer, ‘Out Of My Depth‘. Hot Chip do have a thing for statement closing tracks (Why Make Sense, or Bath Full’s No God, not to mention One Life Stand’s Take It In) and it’s an attempt to perhaps take the darker subject matter of Freakout and land on a more hopeful note, that sadness and emotion is not to be avoided but you can come out the other side intact: “Then I’m in my darkest room / But I’m careful not to enjoy it / All too much, but as I leave / It will be helpful to have endured it.” In many ways it’s one of the biggest nods to this being a far more ‘grown up’ album than their early work, and god knows we love ‘grown up pop’ ™.
So what to make of it this against their canon and – more importantly – the rest of music in 2022? It’s left me feeling slightly adrift of where I’d expect to be. Is this the first album I haven’t fallen for yet from the band? Will I eventually do that? Does every band have a finite shelf life and is this where we are finally heading here? Locking into the themes of how the band themselves can keep making music that has meaning to them – and to us – it genuinely feels strange not to have fallen for a Hot Chip album after a few listens for the first time. Even uncomfortable. I question myself, as much as I do the music. Does it say more about me or the band? Is this just a really good album but sits in comparison to other fresher, more inventive albums this year? It can’t hold a candle to Steve Lacey or Joy Crookes, or the power of Kendrick? But does that matter? Doesn’t it just really matter if it connects and I like it? And life life in general, am I just overthinking it?
For me, music has always been about feelings and connection. Every album before this from the band has had tracks that I feel deeply about. Some of them for reasons I can’t even put my finger on. Brothers is a track I can’t help but well up when I listen to. Written by Joe about this brother, I can’t obviously help but reference my own twin and how much he means to me. Or Night And Day’s little ‘Iknowyou’rethinkingaboutme’ line makes me want to jump out of my chair (and their videos? I could write a whole other blog about their genius). Or Let Me Be Him(from In Our Heads) chokes me up. And Melody Of Love cannot fail to moisten my eyes. Forget logic, it just subconsciously works. I cannot tell you how and it does not matter. Music is about connection for me, so to listen to Freakout/Release and think ‘this is lovely’ for a good chunk of it, doesn’t quite feel enough.
And there’s another, bigger, more important factor at play here: the band is older, lives have changed, families and other responsibilities, as for all of us, emerge. How much of that feeds into the music directly and how much of it is osmosis? It must surely permeate. None of us are in clubs like we used to be, and yet I miss their really big dancefloor bangers (as I also understand that it’d be odd for nothing to change). Think One Life Stand, or Hold On, or perhaps Shake A Fist, No Fit State or Huarache Lights. And I don’t really see that vibe here, for all the musical lushness and inventiveness. Again, does that matter? I still love dance music, and clubs – even if I’m rarely in them – and so having a Hot Chip album that doesn’t quite bang as much as others feels, well, sad. But perhaps it’s another facet of developing as a band, getting older, shifting subtly into areas that feel more removed from where you were ten years ago. Who am I to tell the band it’s not their right to do that, but is there a point where it starts to depart from me, personally? Because I know that even if this album never quite gives me the feels I’ve had before, I know when I see them live, it’ll be as good as it’s ever been with all their catalogue behind them. Because, they are a fantastic live band. It’s often overlooked but to me they are one of the best live bands around, an expanded 7 piece (with Smoughton and drummer Leo Taylor) that can recreate anything from the studio with added vigour and snap on tour. Where will I be? Down the front, singing, shouting, and crying, and I’d never have it any other way.
I worried when I first heard this album and read the press it hit me that perhaps this could be their last album? Maybe it was a reaction to some of the lyrics “Music used to be escape / Now I can’t escape it” (on the title track) and talk of the difficulty that surrounded making it, and perhaps leapt unguardedly to the wrong conclusion, because these things are never to be taken as read, as Taylor has talked about this time around. I don’t think that’s the case any more (especially given their packed touring schedule) and I sincerely hope they are around for a long time yet, but it’s hard not to worry about myself and my taste here as much as the band’s output and wonder where this will all end up. Because I’ve fallen in and out of love with bands before, but this is the first time my adult life coincided with a band I’ve loved from the start (I was ‘only’ 29 when The Warning arrived, and it’s been almost 20 years now since) where I’ve still never seen that desire wane. When that’s finally loomed, even if it’s not how it’ll play out, it shakes you and who you are.
So while Freakout/Release may not have left the mark on me of some of the other Hot Chip albums of the past, I’ve come to appreciate it far more lately than I’d first expected. It’s also made me think about how our relationships with bands and their music evolves, and perhaps accept that nothing lasts forever. That if things do change, I’ll always have a huge catalogue of tracks to pick from and revel in that still hold their lustre to me. I don’t get even half the number of albums I love from this band with many others, so it’s also given me some welcome perspective about great it is to love a band for as long as this. And that’s why I’m going to take the album at face value, enjoy it for what it is, stay in the moment for as long as I can, and look forward to the day when I see them live on their next tour. I’ve been lucky to have them around.
thisisnothappening.net 