Hot Chip have announced their ninth album, A Long Way From Kansas. The follow-up to 2022’s Freakout/Release is due for release on January 8 via Domino. It’s led by the bouncy, hopeful new single ‘Random Violence’, which serves as a tribute to Optimo’s Keith McIvor. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.
“Last year in September our old friend and brilliant DJ Keith McIvor of Optimo in Glasgow passed away after a diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour a few months earlier,” the band’s Joe Goddard explained in a statement. “He largely inspired the words of the song. He was a passionate music lover and a staunch believer in socialism. Many of the words relate directly to his death and to memories of being in Sub Club in Glasgow where we met 20 years ago.”
Directed by Jack Cole, the video for “Random Violence” features the all-female progressive morris dancing side Boss Morris and is a beautiful celebration of togetherness, music, resistance, love and a life well lived. They shall not pass.
The track comes paired with a music video directed by Jack Cole. “We invited some woodland spirits, cursed animals and crazed dancers to join us in a celebration of humanity, remembrance and resistance,” Al Doyle commented. “The genesis of the idea came from the Optimo Espookio Halloween parties we experienced at Sub Club and we wanted to capture that feeling in the video. It was exactly as much fun as it looks, which is to say we had an absolute blast.”
Introducing the album as a whole, Alexis Taylor said: “A Long Way From Kansas reflects the general sense that the world we live in — the world we were making our record in — is particularly harsh, discordant, violent and depressing. Maybe none of that’s new, and that doesn’t mean that every song is talking about the world and politics and genocide, but it was an unavoidable backdrop while making the music. Distortion came to be a bit of a watchword for the whole record.”
A Long Way From Kansas Cover Artwork:
A Long Way From Kansas Tracklist:
1. Stuck Around
2. Waiting Around
3. Random Violence
4. The Mask Is Slipping
5. Splinter
6. Shortcut To Love
7. Me In Your Head [feat. Beth Ditto]
8. Hook Me Up
9. Secular Hymns
10. The Garden [feat. Eddie Chacon]
11. Crushing
