Hot Chip are on a roll. The album they released last year, A Bath Full Of Ecstasy, was one of their best. This year, they followed that up by putting together a Late Night Tales mix that featured their cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says” alongside a couple new songs. But Hot Chip are, apparently, not done with 2020 yet. Now, they’ve followed that mix up with a new single — one that finds them teaming up with Jarvis Fucking Cocker.
The new song is called “Straight To The Morning.” Notably, it was apparently written with Dua Lipa in mind. Over the kind of euphoric dance-pop build Hot Chip were wielding on A Bath Full Of Ecstasy, Alexis Taylor and Cocker both sing paeans for going out to clubs all night long, an activity important to both artists’ work and, of course, something that can’t really happen right now. So I guess you could say “Straight To The Morning” is yet another in this year’s long lineage of music that conjures up nightlife and makes it this wistful echo of normal life.
Otherwise: It’s, naturally, awesome to hear Cocker join Hot Chip on “Straight To The Morning.” Cocker’s also given us some music recently in the form of Beyond The Pale, but most of that album is bleary art-rock. On “House Music All Night Long,” he had already given us one accidental 2020-quarantine-dancing-by-myself anthem. Now he’s done another with Hot Chip that is a lot more ebullient and insistent. It brings to mind that moment when Pulp were briefly reunited and had a song produced by James Murphy, and it makes you hope that, someday, Cocker goes all in and makes a wild dance album. For now, watch the RÉALITÉ-directed “Straight To The Morning” video below.