It’s pop, Jim. But not as we know it.

“I used to be really angsty,” declares Joe Goddard, one-half of Hot Chip’s writing team. “If you listen to early Hot Chip music it’s all sixth-form poetry, acoustic guitars and songs about loneliness. And then we got so pissed off with it that we completely changed direction and made the most inane songs we could…”

Angsty and inane now well out of their system, he and writing partner Alexis Taylor make a strangely quirky kind of pop music, unlike anything you’ve heard before, fusing the sounds of Prince, The Beta Band and The Beach Boys. “It’s kind of R&B pop played by people who are like, like…” Alexis struggles for a description of the band, which has now expanded to a five-piece. “Not like Destiny’s Child… It’s a kind of skewed version of pop music.”

And then there’s the Hot Chip sense of humour. “I want it to sound really good, but you can’t believe that somebody is playing that ridiculous solo,” says Alexis referring to a guitar break in a song called Sexual Chocolate. “It’s playful,” agrees Joe. In March we can expect an album of their offbeat melodies, entitled Coming On Strong. In the meantime there’s the Down With Prince EP. “We don’t try to be difficult or obscure but we do strive to be original,” says Alexis. And original they most definitely are. Matt Walton 05 December 03

Hot Chip - Down With Prince EP, out in February on Moshi Moshi Records.

useful link: www.hotchip.co.uk