Freeload: Hot Chip is the New Retirement Fund
- story THE FADER
In the last week, our dear electronic friends in Hot Chip have released a couple of surprising collaborations with music heroes of the past: a cover of their own “Made in the Dark” with avant-pop wizard Robert Wyatt (literally, that dude is Gandalf on the mic) and a cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” with proto-Tunde Adebimpe/best Genesis-ian Peter Gabriel. The Robert Wyatt collab is from a new EP the group is releasing for the holiday season (see their website for details), and the Gabriel thing is an unreleased potential b-side from the “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” single this year which made its way onto an XL Recordings sampler according to Abeano. Both are so excellent, so warm and wisened, that we’ve decided to change the magazine’s mission from emerging artists to artists with emerging old man ears and gray hair. Despite their excellence, though, Peter Gabriel singing It feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel, too doesn’t make any more sense than Ezra Koenig singing it.
Download: Hot Chip f. Robert Wyatt, “Made in the Dark”
Hot Chip f. Peter Gabriel, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”
Dollars To Pounds: A Wyatt Of My Own
- story THE FADER
I was amazed to suddenly discover, aged 16, that Canterbury—this sleepy Cathedral ‘city’ where I’d go to watch my Grandparents playing lawn bowls—was home to one of the most radical and progressive music scenes of the ‘60s. When I first started getting into Soft Machine and Kevin Ayers my Mum would trot out this convoluted story abut once lending her Bob Dylan LP to someone out of the Wilde Flowers, bless her. Sadly when I raided her record cabinet to stock up on Canterbury scene goodies, I found only one Caravan LP – ultimately she’d preferred the folk revival stuff like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span to the whimsical prog sound of her home city. Anyway, I was honoured this week to be able to chat to one my musical heroes—and possibly one of my Mum’s school crushes—Robert Wyatt.
