English synthpop band Hot Chip announced August 15, 2022 as the release date for their 8th studio album Freakout/Release under the label Domino. Included in this announcement was also the share of a single from the upcoming album entitled “Down.”
Reminiscent of The Pet Shop Boys, “Down” is an upbeat groove with a driving, ’70s style funk base line. The video starts out in black and white with a strobing effect and delayed reaction placed on silhouettes dancing one by one in a hallway, similar to the original iPod commercials. About a minute in, scenes are blanketed one at a time by neon blue, green and purple, adding new layers to the video’s simplistic retro style.
The song title “Down” utilizes multiple meanings of the word. While one can certainly get down and boogie to the song’s danceable beat, the upbeat music juxtaposes the sad underlying message contained in the lyrics. The very first line, “You’ve got to work me, until you get what you need,” tells the song’s story of entrapment and desperation in a nutshell.
One of Hot Chip’s vocalist Joe Goddard hinted that fans can expect a little darkness within Freakout/Release. In an article by Stereogum News, Goddard stated, “We were living through a period where it was very easy to feel like people were losing control of their lives in different ways. There’s a darkness that runs through a lot of those tracks.”
Hot Chip is currently on North American tour with dates running through May 2022. In 2021, they performed at the UK’s End of the Road festival alongside artists such as Arlo Parks, King Krule and more.
Freakout/Release Track List:
01 Down
02 Eleanor
03 Freakout/Release
04 Broken
05 Not Alone
06 Hard to Be Funky [ft. Lou Hayter]
07 Time
08 Miss the Blues
09 The Evil That Men Do [ft. Cadence Weapon]
10 Guilty
11 Out of My Depth
photo credit: Raymond Flotat
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