Hot Chip A Long Way From Kansas: Ninth Album Announced With a JD Twitch Tribute Single
Random Violence honors the late Optimo DJ Keith McIvor, Beth Ditto and Eddie Chacon guest, and a 2027 tour closes at London’s Exhibition White City on March 12.
By The Superfan — CelebnMusic247
Hot Chip are coming home the long way. The band has announced its ninth studio album, A Long Way From Kansas, out January 8 via Domino Records, per SPIN and Consequence — and the title, a Wizard of Oz nod, tells you exactly what kind of record this is: a journey back to the people and dancefloors that made them.
The first single, “Random Violence,” carries the album’s heart. Per the band, it is a tribute to Keith McIvor — JD Twitch of Glasgow duo Optimo — who died last September after a diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour. “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,” Joe Goddard said, per the announcement coverage. The video, directed by Jack Cole, features morris dancing group Boss Morris in a celebration of remembrance inspired by Optimo’s Halloween parties at Sub Club.
A darker record, sung by more voices
Per SPIN, the album confronts a bleak world with distortion, decay and dissonance — without giving up the communal pleasure at the center of Hot Chip’s music. “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,” Alexis Taylor said, per SPIN.
The guest list widens the choir: the Gossip’s Beth Ditto appears on “Me In Your Head” and Eddie Chacon on “The Garden,” per the announced tracklist, alongside expanded singing from within the band — Felix Martin sings on a Hot Chip record for the first time. The 11 tracks run from “Stuck Around” and “Waiting Around” through “The Mask Is Slipping,” “Splinter” and closer “Crushing.”
The road back
The album follows 2022’s Freakout/Release, a busy year that included an appearance in Season 2 of Netflix’s Beef alongside Oscar Isaac and a 20th-anniversary celebration of The Warning, per SPIN. Before the tour, the band will DJ at Glasgow’s Sub Club on October 21 in McIvor’s honor. The UK and European tour then runs through February and March 2027 — Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol — closing March 12 at London’s Exhibition White City, following their sold-out four-night Brixton Academy residency.
Grief, distortion and a room full of people singing together: that has always been the Hot Chip formula. Kansas was never the point — home is a dancefloor.
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Sources: SPIN; Consequence
