Its ironic that Hot Chips previous album was called Why Make Sense? On its release in 2015, it was a mischievous title, as the band spoke about answering their own need to carry on making music as they entered their second decade following 2004’s debut album Coming On Strong. Four years on, post-Brexit, post-Trump, amid a world in a state of permanent confusion, Hot Chip realise that, more than ever, their music has to make sense.
“We re consciously affected by the breaking down of community”, states Alexis Taylor. “In the UK, there are a lot of barriers being created by people being in opposition to each other. Scapegoats are being used to push right-wing views. You can t escape those things going on around us.” Joe Goddard, Taylor’s partner in crime since they met at secondary school in 1991, adds: “It’s something I often think about. Everybody has a sense of responsibility to switch on politically and try to keep abreast of what’s going on. It’s very easy to engage in mindless hedonism, to plug into an online world where you don’t have to face reality. But it’s important not to get lost in that, because there are people on the far-right throughout Europe and in the United States who are politically engaged and who are determining the political landscape.”
Hot Chip’s music has rarely been explicitly political, but it’s easy to gauge from the communal spirit they foster at their shows that they aren’t exactly into setting people against each other. On triumphant new album A Bath Full Of Ecstasy, the moving Positive is more socially active with its tale of two homeless people falling in love and their resultant struggle to stay together. “Positive feels different to anything we’ve written before”, Taylor agrees. “Although it’s an electronic track, it reminds me of Morrissey in the melodies I’m singing. I was thinking about people with struggles like addiction and potential homelessness. Homeless people aren’t necessarily offered much support in the community around them. Positive touches on that, thinking about things I was seeing around me and people close to me suffering from different problems.”