Hot Chip New Album Drops a Wizard of Oz Twist

The Hot Chip new album is official: the British synth-pop band announced A Long Way From Kansas on Monday, a ninth LP due January eighth, twenty twenty-seven, on Domino. It is their first full-length in almost five years, and it arrives with a lead single called Random Violence.

The title borrows from The Wizard of Oz, and the mood is just as dramatic. According to Stereogum, the record is Dorothy-and-Toto themed, with guest spots from Beth Ditto and Eddie Chacon across eleven tracks.

A tribute to a Glasgow legend

Random Violence is not a party track. Stereogum describes it as a new wave power ballad that captures some of the essence of LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends, with orchestral sounds standing in for the relentless piano. That link makes sense, since Al Doyle plays in both bands.

The song honours Keith McIvor, the Glasgow DJ known as Optimo and JD Twitch, who died last September at fifty-seven after a diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour. Joe Goddard says the lyrics were largely inspired by McIvor, a passionate music lover and staunch believer in socialism, and by memories of the Sub Club in Glasgow, where the band met him twenty years ago.

The track starts as a Goddard number before Alexis Taylor joins on the chorus, and together they sing that someone gave them something to believe in. It is a simple line, and in the context of a friend's death it lands hard.

Why the album sounds so tense

Taylor has been blunt about the backdrop. According to Consequence, he says the album reflects a general sense that the world the band was making it in is harsh, discordant, violent and depressing. Press material from Domino adds that the band is at its most primal, and mentions deaths, pointless wars and a climate catastrophe burning through the seasons.

That is a notable shift for a group best known for dance floor anthems like Over and Over. Here the title suggests a band trying to find its way home, and distortion is described as a guiding idea for the sound.

The album was recorded earlier this year at Goddard and Doyle's East London studio, Relax and Enjoy. According to The Line of Best Fit, it also marks the first time bandmember Felix Martin sings on a Hot Chip record.

The video and the tour

The Random Violence video was directed by Jack Cole and features Boss Morris, an all-female progressive morris dancing group. The visuals are described as a celebration of togetherness, remembrance and resistance, and reportedly nod to Optimo's famous Halloween parties.

Live plans are already taking shape. The band will DJ at Glasgow's Sub Club on October twenty-first to mark the announcement and honour McIvor's legacy. A headline show at Dublin's Olympia Theatre is set for March fourth, twenty twenty-seven, and a European tour includes a March twelfth date at London's Exhibition White City, according to SPIN and Hot Press. Those dates follow a sold-out four-night run at Brixton Academy.

What the long gap looked like

The band's last studio album was Freakout/Release in twenty twenty-two. Since then they have stayed busy: a career-spanning compilation called Joy In Repetition, an appearance alongside Oscar Isaac in the second season of Netflix's Beef, and a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of their album The Warning.

Several members have also kept up solo projects, which is part of why the wait felt longer than it was. Fans who grew up with the band's early records now have a reason to pay attention again.

What to listen for

The tracklist opens with Stuck Around and Waiting Around, and runs through The Mask Is Slipping, Secular Hymns and a closer called Crushing. Ditto appears on Me In Your Head, while Chacon features on The Garden.

If you only stream one thing this week, make it Random Violence. It shows a band that built its name on joy using that same warmth to process grief, and it sets up the Hot Chip new album as one of the more emotionally ambitious releases of early twenty twenty-seven.

For more releases and tour news, keep an eye on our music coverage as the January release date gets closer.