If, over the past 20 or so years, you’ve set foot on the dancefloor of an indie disco, roamed through the party corners of a festival, or just switched on the radio and been greeted by the catchiest song ever written about a monkey with a miniature cymbal, you’ll know the giddy genius of Hot Chip. They’re the ones instructing you to “do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now” on Ready for the Floor, and the five unassuming men making strange mesmeric magic on Boy from School. “The first label we worked with in the music industry said we were like a weird boy band version of the Spice Girls,” recalls frontman Alexis Taylor, “where they all just look different from each other.”
An unlikely recipe for one of the most revered British groups of the 21st century, perhaps, but one that’s served them well. This month, they’re celebrating it all with Joy in Repetition, a retrospective-so-far of a career that began firmly on the outliers of a 2000s scene stacked with skinny jean-clad guitar bands and has worked its way to the beloved top tier. Taylor remembers the landscape well.
