Hot Chip funk
Hot Chip
Coming On Strong
(Astralwerks)
When funk gets so white it’s black.
This theory is unstable, so bear with it: White soul singers fail so miserably because they want so much to sound black. The key to blackness is soul, which yields grace, which is in practice the ultimate in looking natural. So here’s where the first sentence fits in: Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard know they aren’t black, so they don’t try to be. Hence, they can make a great lite-funk record.
Make sense? Probably not. I’m not even sure Coming On Strong — an ironic title if you believe this review — is a great funk record, but it sounds like it could be. The beat behind “Keep Fallin'” bumps every eighth note, but slouches in its seat and doesn’t appear to move. The same way Massive Attack’s Blue Lines seemed to just materialize, Coming On Strong saunters onto the floor, does the worm, and fades into the throngs. But not before it gets its hand into your pants, and makes you its girlfriend.
— Kevin Keegan
