Some Primitive Healing

Hot Chip “Freakout/Release”

The first time I heard “Freakout/Release” was at Hot Chip’s show at Avant Gardner in Brooklyn back in May, well before a studio version was available. This was an advantage in that I could be genuinely surprised by the big turn in the song when it happened as I was coming to it without “spoilers.” This part of the song, in which the band shift into a heavy rock riff after starting off in a classic Hot Chip electro-funk mode, is a bit less dramatic in the studio recording. Some of this is probably in just mixing it so it made sense as a track, but it’s still a thrilling dynamic move that delivers on the promise of the title. The structure of the track is like an answer to Alexis Taylor’s lyrics, in which he’s fretting about feeling jaded about music and not getting the kind of rush he got from it in the past. He’s blaming it on everyone else – “music used to be in love, but now people leave it or take it” – but the song implies that the answer is simply shifting it up and breaking out of old patterns. A lot of a thrill is just enjoying something you didn’t expect, so why not toss a big dumb guitar riff?

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