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

A ninth album, led by a eulogy

Hot Chip's ninth studio album is called A Long Way From Kansas. Domino will release it on January 8, 2027, and its first single, "Random Violence," came out with a music video.813 The record has 11 tracks and was made at Relax and Enjoy, the East London studio run by band members Joe Goddard and Al Doyle. Beth Ditto and Eddie Chacon both appear as guests.8 The album follows 2022's Freakout/Release.159

The single carries the real news. "Random Violence" is a tribute to Keith McIvor, the Glasgow DJ known as JD Twitch and one half of Optimo. He died in September 2025, a few months after doctors found an inoperable brain tumour.16 One report gives his age as 57.12 Goddard said McIvor inspired most of the lyrics. He described his friend as a passionate music lover and a committed socialist, and said many of the lines deal directly with his death and with memories of Sub Club, the Glasgow venue where the band met him about 20 years ago.213

The band also marked the release in person. Hot Chip played a DJ night with friends at Sub Club on October 21, framed as a celebration of McIvor's life.165 Putting out a grief song and then playing records in the room where the friendship began suggests the band cares more about community than about promotion.

What the song does, and how it sounds

The lyrics are a plain elegy. Goddard sings about friends telling stories of a man who spent his life sending songs out into the world, and Alexis Taylor comes in with the line "You gave me something to believe in."141 It is unusual to hear Goddard sing lead on a Hot Chip single. Taylor takes the second verse, and the whole band sings the chorus together.

Critics describe the sound in ways that don't quite match. Our Culture calls the single bouncy and hopeful.15 SPIN says the band turns loss into a rallying cry for music, solidarity and human connection.14 One newsletter writer heard a sweeping arrangement that pairs synths with strings and a piano hook over two chords, and compared it to New Order and to LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends." Consequence instead says the album as a whole leans toward a more distorted, punk-influenced sound.8

Both accounts can be true. On this reading, "Random Violence" is the album's most open, communal moment, and the harsher textures the band describes show up elsewhere on the record. Taylor said distortion became something of a guiding word for the whole album.415 A warm, string-backed song is an odd way to preview a record built around distortion, so the noisier side is probably still to come.

Consequence adds that the song sets acts of violence against acts of kindness, which is meant to reflect the warmth and connection McIvor created through his work.8 That contrast explains the title. The violence in the song is the background, and the tribute is about the people who push back against it.

Morris dancers, protest colours and a Halloween party

Jack Cole directed the video. It features Boss Morris, an all-female group that dances a progressive version of the English folk tradition.1314 Doyle said the band invited woodland spirits, cursed animals and wild dancers to celebrate humanity, remembrance and resistance. The idea came from Optimo's Espookio Halloween parties at Sub Club.25

German magazine Visions reads the video as more openly political than most English-language coverage does. It reports that dancers carry protest signs with activist slogans and symbols in red and yellow, colours associated with socialism. The costumes, it says, refer back to the Halloween parties McIvor helped run.10 Visions calls McIvor above all an activist and describes the single as both emotional and political.10 Anglophone outlets mostly put grief and togetherness first. Read together, the coverage suggests the video works as a memorial and as a statement of the politics McIvor held.

Why Kansas, and why now

The title comes from The Wizard of Oz. It points to Dorothy's long trip home and the search for some kind of normality.6 Consequence frames the album as being about belonging and stability in a chaotic world.8 Visions puts it more bluntly: with war and climate disaster, normality now seems even further away than Kansas.10

Taylor's statement for the album is the most direct framing the band has offered. He said the world they made the record in felt especially harsh, discordant, violent and depressing. He stressed that not every song is about politics or genocide, but said those things were an unavoidable backdrop.113 Taylor names genocide outright and then pulls back from any claim that this is a political album. That balance looks deliberate. The band is admitting where it stands without promising a protest record. Readers who know the group's earlier work may notice that Hot Chip's sad songs have usually ended up on the dancefloor, and "Random Violence" keeps that habit.

The group also takes a more collective approach to singing. Taylor said Owen Clarke and Felix Martin both sing on the album alongside him and Goddard. It is Martin's first time singing on a Hot Chip record, and there is also a choir and plenty of group vocals.27 Ditto appears on "Me In Your Head" and Chacon on "The Garden."1216 One reviewer called it the band at its most primal.6

The year that led here

The announcement ends a busy year. Hot Chip appeared in the second season of Netflix's Beef, playing live alongside Oscar Isaac. In May they marked the 20th anniversary of their second album, The Warning, including an episode of Song Exploder.178 Clash notes that the band hinted at new music during that anniversary.4 A best-of album, Joy In Repetition, came out in 2025.10

The members have been busy on their own too. Taylor released a solo album, Paris in the Spring, this year. Doyle, who also plays in LCD Soundsystem, has a debut solo record called Hollywood Saviour due on DFA on November 20.9 The band produced A Long Way From Kansas itself. One writer pointed out that owning a studio other artists also use probably helps the finances, at a time when long careers are hard to sustain.

That writer's framing explains why the release matters. Hot Chip came out of the 2000s blog-house scene and has now lasted through the streaming era and the hollowing-out of music media. The band is well loved but never made the commercial leap some of its peers did. A ninth album built around a tribute to a Glasgow DJ shows a group that values its own scene over trying to reach a bigger market.

Tour dates and loose ends

The band will tour the UK and Europe in early 2027. The run starts on February 26 at Berlin's Astra and goes through Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris's Bataclan and Dublin's 3Olympia before ending at London's Exhibition White City on March 12.5 Resident Advisor also mentions South American dates between now and early 2027.9

The published tour schedules disagree on the details. Consequence lists Glasgow on March 7, Manchester on March 8 and an added Birmingham show on March 9.8 Under the Radar and God Is In The TV have Glasgow on March 8 and Manchester on March 9, with no Birmingham date.56 Fans should check the band's own listings before booking travel. Resident Advisor's article also gives the release year as 2026 in one place. Every other outlet, and the rest of its own report, says January 8, 2027.98 Pre-orders unlock a ticket presale, and general sale started October 23.6 Formats include a deluxe double gatefold LP with an extra 7-inch, a standard double LP, CD and digital.

The cleanest summary of the announcement is a band close to its 25th year making a record about the dark state of the world, and opening it with a song about a friend. If the rest of the album matches the distortion Taylor described, "Random Violence" will likely stand as its warmest track.