Hot Chip have a new album coming out in February. Seeing how they are the primary purveyor of synth new-wave coming out of the UK these days, it is a well anticipated event. For much of the 80s and 90s the UK, where the synth arts were refined, had the synth market cornered, whereas now, there are more new-wave type synth bands out
of the US, Canada, and Sweden than there are coming out of the UK.

While on the topic of synth bands, I am going to take this opportunity to editorialize a bit. I have an issue with numerous studio recordings of keyboard/synth bands. It is pretty often for a synth-heavy band to sound thin and two dimensional on record. Often I expect a electronic based band to sound wack live, but more often than not they sound great, in no small part to the keyboards. I don’t get it. Why don’t more synth studio records sound better? It is not like there is no good precedences out there: Joy Division, New Order, even Thompson Twins have great synth sound and the recent Legends’ “Facts and Figures” record demonstrated that it isn’t a lost art.

Anywho, Hot Chip always sound great live with the multiple keyboards sounding nice and thick like any set of well deployed analog-synths should. They generally start with a high wash and layer in deeper thick slabs of vintage 808 to excellent effect. On record, however, some of the depth provided by the keyboards during the live shows seems to get lost.

This live recording doesn’t really illustrate my point particularly well, but what it does do, it shows the Hot Chippers tying in a killer New Order reference. I was going to post a live version of the lead single off of the new album from the same show, but decided to post this live version of No Fit State. This song killed live.