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Dec 06, 2024 By Mark Redfern

Hot Chip and Sleaford Mods have teamed up for two new collaborative songs, “Nom Nom Nom” and “Cat Burglar,” with their release benefiting the UK charity War Child. Both songs were recorded on the same day in Abbey Road Studios. The bands are jokingly referring to the collaboration as Hot Mods. Listen to the songs below and also watch a short documentary on the recording of the songs.

We’re aware that this is slightly old news, but the songs came out last week while I was on vacation and I still felt they warranted attention, especially as they benefit War Child, a charity we have partnered with.

The two songs are being released on 7-inch vinyl via Friendly Records. They are limited to 1,000 copies, with 900 being yellow transparent vinyl available for £20 via Bandcamp and further 100 special edition copies in red available for £30 exclusively from Friendly Records Bristol.

Sleaford Mods had this to say about the songs in a press release: “It was both a surprise and a great honor to be asked to go to Abbey Road to collaborate with Hot Chip. We’ve always admired Hot Chip’s wall of sound-esque, club culture aesthetic, and obviously Abbey Road needs no introduction. On the day, we went in cold and just handed ourselves over to it. ‘Nom Nom Nom’ is a lyrical continuation of ‘UK GRIM’ over a keyboard riff from Andrew, built on by Hot Chip, finishing up with an excellent chorus from Alexis. ‘Cat Burglar’ is in the same vein, a weird Prog Rock meets B52’s jam that discusses again, the narrow corridors of modern human experience. The cover art from the great David Shrigley is the cherry on the cake, as it perfectly represents the music and lyrics. All creativity aside, most importantly we’ve donated the tunes to War Child. They’re doing important work in a time where the world is in chaos and although we can’t fix the chaos, we can do a bit to help.”

Hot Chip had this to say: “Making these songs over the course of one day at Abbey Road was a great experience. We arrived without a plan but quickly began working together in a harmonious way, with lots of improvisation and very little ego. We are very grateful to Sleaford Mods for joining us and very proud of the result.”

War Child issued this statement: “We’re so grateful for the ongoing support from Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip and for their decision to donate the fantastic tracks ‘Nom Nom Nom’ and ‘Cat Burglar.’ We’d also like to thank David Shrigley for the brilliant design. The world is more dangerous than ever before, particularly for children affected by conflict and the continued generosity of the artists we work with enables us to get children safe, deliver the vital mental health first aid they need to help them deal with the trauma they’ve experienced, and get them back into education.”

Friendly Records add: “We’ve been working with War Child for a few years now and are immensely proud of the shows we’ve put on with them, the recent run of 7-inch singles we’ve released and most of all the amount of money that’s been raised. This latest 7-inch from Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip (with the added bonus of a David Shrigley designed sleeve!) is yet another brilliant addition to the 7-inch releases and will again be raising even more money and awareness for the brilliant War Child charity.”

Hot Chip’s latest album was 2022’s Freakout/Release, put out by Domino.

Read the My Favorite Album article Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor wrote for us about Prince.

Sleaford Mods’ last album, UK GRIM, came out last year on Rough Trade,

Listen to our interview with Sleaford Mods in a 2021 episode of our podcast.

Donate directly to War Child UK here.

Or donate to their U.S. fundraising arm, Children in Conflict, here.

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