Photo by Anne Tetzlaff and Guy Bolongaro.
Alexis Taylor, the arch and ever-so-slightly effete Hot Chip front man, has been a strangely omnipresent figure in British music for just over a decade now. The band he formed with former schoolmate Joe Goddard at the turn of the millennium have, in their own relatively understated way, gone on to be huge.OK, so Hot Chip might not be Ed Sheeran huge but they're still big enough to pack out venues, sit near the top of pretty much every major festival bill going, and combine wonky avant-electropop with bangers even your granny knows and loves. Which is commendable for a group of musicians who don't look or sound like a conventional crossover act.Taylor's been releasing solo material since 2008. That year's Rubbed Out was a tender, sparse collection of material—featuring a brilliant cover of Paul McCartney's "Coming Up"—that saw him veer away from the eclectically electronic melange he served up in his day job. That was followed in 2014 by the smooth and sad Await Barbarians, a heartbreak record for those of us who've wasted our life online.Read the rest of this article on Thump.