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Apr 19, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Matilda Hill-Jenkins

Hot Chip have announced a new album, Freakout/Release, and shared its first single, “Down,” via a video for it. Freakout/Release is due out August 19 via Domino. Check out the “Down” video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Hot Chip features Owen Clarke, Al Doyle, Joe Goddard, Felix Martin, and Alexis Taylor. “Down” is built around a sample of Universal Togetherness Band’s “More Than Enough” that Goddard looped. It was the first song the band worked on for Freakout/Release. Former Jesus and Mary Chain member Douglas Hart and Pulp’s Steve Mackey directed the “Down” video, which includes a reference to The Shining.

Freakout/Release is the follow-up to 2019’s A Bath Full of Ecstasy. It was recorded at the band’s own Relax & Enjoy Studio in East London, which Doyle had put together before the pandemic and during COVID-19’s first year. The sound of the album was inspired by the band’s cover of Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” which they often perform live. “The idea of being out of control is always there in dance music, in a positive sense,” says Doyle, in a press release, of the cover’s influence on the album.

“By the time we were able to be back together, we were turning on a tap and having a lot of ideas being poured out quite quickly,” adds Taylor.

Goddard says current times influenced the album’s lyrics. “We were living through a period where it was very easy to feel like people were losing control of their lives in different ways,” he explains. “There’s a darkness that runs through a lot of those tracks.”

The album features Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon on “The Evil That Men Do,” British DJ and musician Lou Hayter on “Hard to Be Funky,” and production duo Soulwax on the album’s title track.

In 2020, Hot Chip teamed up with Jarvis Cocker for the new song “Straight to the Morning,” which was #1 on our Songs of the Week list but isn’t featured on the new album. They also shared a Dillon Francis remix of the song. In 2021, Goddard teamed up with New York City based singer/songwriter Amy Douglas as HARD FEELINGS and they released their self-titled debut album in November via Domino. Last year Hot Chip also produced Girl Ray’s “Give Me Your Love” single and this March Ibibio Sound Machine released a new Hot Chip-produced album, Electricity.

Freakout/Release Tracklist:

1. Down
2. Eleanor
3. Freakout/Release
4. Broken
5. Not Alone
6. Hard to Be Funky feat. Lou Hayter
7. Time
8. Miss The Blues
9. The Evil That Men Do feat. Cadence Weapon
10. Guilty
11. Out of My Depth

Hot Chip Tour Dates:

April 19 – The Warfield, San Francisco, CA
April 22 – Humphrey’s Concerts, San Diego, CA
April 23 – Coachella Festival, Indio, CA
April 24 – The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ
April 26 – Mission Ballroom, Denver, CO
April 27 – Sunshine Theater, Albuquerque, NM
April 29 – House of Blues, Dallas, TX
April 30 – Stubb’s Waller Amphitheater, Austin, TX
May 2 – Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville, TN
May 3 – Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA
May 5 – The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
May 7 – Pulso GNP Festival, Mexico City, Mexico
May 9 – House of Blues, Boston, MA
May 10 – Avant Gardner, Brooklyn, NY
May 11 - Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA
May 13 – Stage AE, Pittsburgh, PA
May 14 – Radius, Chicago, IL
June 3 – Junction 1 Summer Series, Glasgow, Scotland
June 5 – Forbidden Fruit, Dublin, Ireland
July 8 – Cruilla Barcelona, Spain
July 15 – Super Bock Super Rock, Lisbon, Portugal
July 16 – Beat Herder, Clitheroe, UK
August 6 – Wide Skies & Butterflies, Norfolk, UK
September 2 – Cala Mijas Festival, Malaga, Spain
September 21 – o2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
September 22 – o2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
September 23 – o2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
September 24 – o2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
October 1 – Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany
October 2 – Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany
October 3 – AB Ballroom, Brussels, Belgium
October 5 – Tivoli Ronda, Utrecht, The Netherlands
October 8 – Olympia, Paris, France

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