Hot Chip Ninth Album A Long Way From Kansas Arrives January 2027

A ninth album, and an elegy to start it

On 19 October, Hot Chip announced A Long Way From Kansas, their ninth studio album. Domino will release it on 8 January 2027.211 The band also released a lead single, "Random Violence," with a music video.2 The record has 11 tracks and includes guest vocals from Beth Ditto on "Me In Your Head" and Eddie Chacon on "The Garden."14

The announcement covered the usual ground: a release date, a tracklist and a tour. What makes it worth a closer look is the tone. Most dance-pop bands open an album campaign with something upbeat. Hot Chip opened theirs with a song about a dead friend, inside a record they describe as a response to an unpleasant world. Every outlet covering the news led with the same two points, the McIvor tribute and the bleak backdrop. That suggests the band's framing worked. It also gives a fair idea of what kind of record this will be.

"Random Violence" and the Optimo connection

"Random Violence" is written for Keith McIvor, the Glasgow DJ, promoter and Optimo co-founder who worked as JD Twitch.4 Neon Music dates his death to September 2025.7 Joe Goddard said in a statement that McIvor died a few months after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, and that he "largely inspired the words of the song."2 Goddard called him a passionate music lover and a committed socialist. He added that much of the lyric draws on McIvor's death and on memories of Sub Club in Glasgow, where the band met him about 20 years ago.18

Goddard sings the first part of the song. Alexis Taylor comes in later.11 According to Northern Transmissions, Goddard's verse describes friends telling stories about a man who spent his life "sending songs out into the world," and Taylor answers with a line of thanks to someone who gave him "something to believe in."6 Consequence reads the track as setting violence against kindness, so that the title works against the song's actual subject: the warmth McIvor brought to the people around him.2

The main facts match across outlets: the dedication, Goddard's quote, the Sub Club history and the illness. The descriptions of Optimo vary a little. Consequence calls it a Scottish DJ duo.2 Under the Radar describes it more fully as a club night at Sub Club that grew into a musical project and a record label.11 Both are accurate. Together they show why McIvor mattered beyond his own sets. For a band like Hot Chip, whose music has always sat between indie songwriting and club culture, a night like Optimo shaped their tastes.

A video built from Halloween memories

Jack Cole directed the video. It stars Boss Morris, an all-female progressive morris dancing group.14 Al Doyle said the band filled it with woodland spirits, cursed animals and wild dancers to celebrate "humanity, remembrance and resistance." He traced the idea to Optimo's Espookio Halloween parties at Sub Club.111

The choice says something about how the band is handling grief. English folk ritual, Glasgow club nights and a memorial song in one video could have felt forced. Doyle's description points in another direction: the video is meant to be fun, not solemn.6 The same thinking explains the next event. Hot Chip will DJ with friends at Sub Club on 21 October to mark the announcement and honour McIvor. Dork reports that tickets are free.34 Hot Chip are marking the loss in the room where they met him, doing the thing he did.

The album: distortion, discord and a road home

The title comes from Dorothy's line in The Wizard of Oz. Clash takes it to mean a band trying to find its way home.1 Consequence frames the record as a search for belonging and stability amid chaos.2 Taylor's statement, quoted in almost every report, says the album reflects a world that feels "particularly harsh, discordant, violent and depressing." He adds that not every song is about politics or genocide, but that this was an unavoidable backdrop while they worked.211 Clash includes one more line from Taylor that others leave out: distortion became "a bit of a watchword for the whole record."1

That line matters most when judging how the album might sound. Consequence goes further than other outlets and describes a more distorted, punk-influenced sound.2 No other report uses the word punk. Until more music is out, that label is best read as a reasonable guess based on Taylor's comment, not a confirmed change of style. Even so, distortion as a guiding idea is notable for a group known for clean synth-pop.

The band recorded the album at Relax and Enjoy, the East London studio run by Goddard and Doyle.2 It also has more voices on it than usual. Felix Martin sings on a Hot Chip record for the first time.38 Taylor told Under the Radar that Owen Clarke also sings, along with a choir and a lot of group vocals. He said the band likes "opening out our interior world and bringing all these voices together."11 Track titles like "Secular Hymns" and "The Mask Is Slipping" fit both ideas: communal singing and the trouble underneath.5

The album will come out as deluxe and standard double gatefold LPs, on CD and digitally. The deluxe edition adds a 7-inch single.4

Context: a long gap, filled with looking back

A Long Way From Kansas is the band's first studio album since Freakout/Release in 2022, which followed A Bath Full of Ecstasy in 2019.11 The gap has not been quiet, but much of it has been about the band's past. They celebrated the 20th anniversary of their second album, The Warning, this year.23 Treble says they reissued three of their classic albums earlier in 2026.9 Pitchfork mentions a 2025 reissue of their greatest-hits collection Joy In Repetition.8 Dork's archive describes Joy In Repetition as the band's first Best Of.4 The band also appeared alongside Oscar Isaac in the second season of Netflix's Beef.2

In my reading, that context explains why the new album's framing feels urgent. A band that has spent two years revisiting its 2006 breakthrough could easily have made a comfortable record. Instead they are pairing their return with grief, political unease and a deliberate move toward rougher sounds. The band started out in clubs like Sub Club, and losing someone from that world seems to have sharpened what they want to say.

Tour dates, and where the listings disagree

The band will tour the UK and Europe in early 2027. The run starts at Astra in Berlin on 26 February and passes through Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin before reaching British cities.24 It ends at Exhibition White City in London on 12 March.3 Fans who pre-order the album get access to a ticket pre-sale. General sale opens on 23 October.410

The published dates do not match for the middle of the UK run. Consequence and Neon Music list Glasgow's SWG3 Galvanizers on 7 March, Manchester's Albert Hall on 8 March and Birmingham's O2 Institute 1 on 9 March.27 Northern Transmissions lists two nights at SWG3 on 7 and 8 March, followed by Manchester on 9 March. It does not mention Birmingham.6 Dork puts Glasgow on 8 March and Manchester on 9 March, also without Birmingham.4 All of these come from the same announcement, so at least one version is wrong. Anyone planning to attend should check the official ticket listings before booking.

The takeaway

The coverage agrees on the main points. Hot Chip are returning in January with an album shaped by a harsh climate, with distortion as a stated guiding idea, and they have chosen to introduce it with an elegy for a Glasgow DJ who influenced them.12 Opening with "Random Violence" suggests the band sees grief and community as linked. The video, the free Sub Club event and the large group of singers on the album all point the same way. Whether the rougher sound that Taylor's comments hint at holds up across the album will only be clear once more of it is out.