There are two salient points to the new Hot Chip video: 1) It's very spinny (and quite possibly dizzy-inducing), and 2) it's backed by Flutes, the first single from the band's new album In Our Heads. When you come to a Hot Chip track, certain elements are a given; the quirk-laden vocals which here take on almost ethereal overtones, and intensely pleasurable rubbery synth-rhythms that underpin the group's unique brand of synth-dance.
And it's in the ethos of dance that Flutes finds its chiefs merits - here, Hot Chip adopt a slicker, darker overhaul, and the results are impressive to say the least. In its shimmery rainy 80s-days ecstasy, Flutes - at its best - plays out like some lost Hacienda classic, a slice of 12" synth beauty that has tunnelled out some subterranean existence in the pale neon afterglow of a dingey early-hours club. Only now resurfacing from electronically-induced hibernation, it paints a promising picture for the album as a whole.
In Our Heads is released on the 11th June.
