Hot Chip - The Warning (EMI)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
People with guitars have long regarded things made with computers like people in science fiction regard robots. In the machines, things are going on up top, but there's no real heart. People are civil to them because they act just like us. But unlike you and I, robots can't love. Robots can't cry. Robots don't have a favourite Clash album. But eventually in every such far fetched yarn, owing to a few corrupt files here and a dodgy circuit board there, the robots learn to love, to be human. Similarly, those with computers have now discovered how tapping on a keyboard can translate into tapping in to real emotion, and might even be better at it than the rest of us. Time, then, for the guitarists to open up their hearts, as well as their minds.
Hot Chip are where electronica begins to develop a social conscience to go along with its attention grabbing moves. Cementing their stance, they even mock the other options on the remarkable groove of 'Over and Over', lambasting the current dance scene's repetition obsession for being about as intelligent as the music of "a monkey with a miniature cymbal". Their point is clear to see, their riling against it a joy to witness. A joy, that is, in the sense that it's remarkably impressive - not that it's always attempting to give rise to unadulterated glee. Bits of it possess melody so sublimely arresting that it could produce tears in an android - 'And I Was a Boy from School' particularly being so wistful that you wonder,
momentarily, if you'll ever do anything other than sigh and think of the good times ever again. But at the same time - damn if my backside isn't moving like a bad'un to that beat, sonny.
It happens again on 'Colours', charming and slightly less pensive, but still you'll notice that you're noticeably rather sad although dancing in ways you'd never thought your legs were capable of. That's clever. But despite its numerous displays of humanity (another being 'Look After Me', it's simple, repeated refrain just so damn pretty), 'The Warning' isn't soppy by any means. Its grooves are filthy, its beats powerful when called upon, its threat on the title track to "break your legs, snap off your head" not one you'd call empty. You'd want to get it under to covers for the right reasons - because it'd respect you as a person and not just an object, and all that bloody romantic twaddle.
Part of being human is imperfection, and this isn't perfect. It loses focus somewhere toward the end of its route, getting too carried away with how fun it is to nod your head rather than engage its contents - more fun, that is, for those who have found the beat than those who merely are party to it. But mere blips, all told, in an otherwise outstanding achievement, where flesh and bones harness the more emotional, noble capacities of electricity in a way not carried off so successfully since the Transformers defended us from the evil forces of the Deceptacons. Gawd bless those robots.
Artists in this article: Hot Chip
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