Joe Goddard, Harvest Festival
Featured Album
Hot Chip's Joe Goddard brings us some gently propulsive, elegiac electronic miniatures
Celebrating Harvest Festival generally involves children bringing tinned fruit into church or school so that it can be distributed to the less well off. And although there is something of a cupboard-clearing vibe to the first solo album from Hot Chip's Joe Goddard (some of the tracks have been lying dormant in his hard drive for several years), there's enough here to suggest that Goddard isn't just unloading stale ideas and keeping the fresh ones for his main gig. Goddard attempts to channel Brian Eno and Aphex Twin through the filter of Theo Parrish or Funky, and he's most successful when he aims away from the dance floor: his vocals on "Lemon & Lime (Home Time)" are reminiscent of Arthur Russell, laid as they are on top of elegiac synth chords and gently propulsive beats, while "Sour Grapes" sounds a bit like a Ricardo Villalobos remix of Goblin. However, tracks like "Go Bananas," with its Zomby-like rave pastiche (only without the glee) and over-reliance on a pitch-shifted Last Poets sample, are less well-judged. Admittedly, the concept of titling tracks after various fruits is truly awful, but it does attempt to capture the light-hearted atmosphere of this collection of electronic miniatures.
