If you're not familiar with Hot Chip and their nerdy brand of electropop, Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor are the founding members and primary voices of the band.
Since last year's One Night Stand, Taylor has done some guest vocals for the likes of Win Win and Gang Gang Dance, and now Goddard has released his first solo EP on Greco-Roman, and DFA in the US.
The title track, "Gabriel," features the sultry vocals of UK songstress Valentina:
Goddard lends his own voice to the epically chill "All I Know":
Pick up the EP at iTunes for less than 4 bucks. Help a Hot Chip out.
Hot Chip was involved in one of my favorite collaborations of last year, teaming up with Bernard Sumner for "Didn't Know What Love Was." Now Hot Chip lead singer Alexis Taylor has lent his vocals to another project.
Win Win is the snarkily named project of Spank Rock producer XXXChange and Chris Devlin of Baltimore DJ duo Devlin & Darko.
If you're old, like me, that probably doesn't mean a lot. But the smooth electronic sounds, Taylor's fragile voice and the clip created by video artist Ghostdad are intoxicating:
Before we get into the list, a disclaimer. Unlike that of your "legitimate" music blogs — with a staff of writers, editors and contributors weighing in — this list is one man's opinion. A prejudiced, narrow and significantly uninformed opinion.
That said, this list represents the releases of the past year that tickled an old waver's fancy. Maybe it was a gooey synth, a shoegazey guitar, dreamy vocals or some other Pavlovian trigger, but something in all of these albums took me to my happy place.
So, with apologies to Kanye, here's part one of Old Waver's Top 30 Albums of 2010:
They promised a video to go along with the old school synth pop jam, and today our friends at Slicing Up Eyeballs dug it up on YouTube.
The clip features Bernard and his shadow, Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip and their doppelgangers, plenty of stop motion effects, and a cameo from New Order drummer Stephen Morris:
To download the track free, hear alternate takes and watch short films about each of the artists, check out the Converse Music Blog.
Somewhere in an alternate universe, this song is a #1 hit. I want to go to there.
As we excitedly mentioned yesterday, today you can download Bernard Sumner's new track featuring Hot Chip and Hot City for free at the Converse UK site.
"I Didn't Know What Love Was" surprisingly — or expectedly, depending on your point of view — kicks all kinds of ass:
All the talk about Barney this week has me seriously jonesing for some New Order. If you are as well, may I humbly recommend New Order - 316. The 2-DVD set has a '98 set from the Reading Festival... you can watch that at your own risk.
Worth the price alone is the first disc featuring one of New Order's first US appearances, a November 1981 show at the Ukrainian National Home in New York City. Just check out "Ceremony" and you'll be sold:
On the heels of Monday's post looking back at Electronic comes the news that Converse is releasing a brand new collaboration between Bernard Sumner, Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip, and new kid Hot City.
The UK Converse website will offer the track, "I Didn't Know What Love Was", as a free download tomorrow.
The Sumner/Hot Chip track would be right at home in the Electronic catalogue. The piano line is reminiscent of "Disappointed" and the song soars to equally grand synth-pop heights:
, Taylor has done some guest vocals for the likes of Win Win and Gang Gang Dance, and now Goddard has released his first solo EP on Greco-Roman, and DFA in the US.
's Bernard Sumner, 
. The 2-DVD set has a '98 set from the Reading Festival... you can watch that at your own risk.