Hot Chip’s road to Kansas starts in Glasgow
One of Joe Goddard’s memories of Keith McIvor takes place at an airport, a few days after an Optimo Halloween party. McIvor and his DJ partner Jonnie Wilkes were enjoying photographs of their friends’ costumes. Recalling the encounter for DJ Mag in September 2025, Goddard explained that Hot Chip tried to get to those parties whenever a tour brought them close enough. His account of the nights dwells on the community around Optimo as much as the records they played.
For Alexis Taylor, the influence of Optimo reached into Hot Chip’s own musical life. In the same tribute, he described McIvor and Wilkes as “a guiding light of friendship and musical discovery”, remembering both their DJ sets and the bands they chose to put on. Goddard’s recollections were just as affectionate: he remembered McIvor teasing a Sub Club crowd with the opening of Madonna’s “Hung Up” long before finally playing the record. These were people who had changed the way Hot Chip listened.
That history gives the band’s new album announcement a particularly personal beginning. A Long Way From Kansas, their ninth album and the follow-up to 2022’s Freakout/Release, is due on 8 January 2027 via Domino. Its first single, “Random Violence”, is a tribute to McIvor, better known as JD Twitch, who died in September 2025. Goddard says its lyrics draw on their friendship and memories of meeting at Glasgow’s Sub Club around twenty years ago. He takes the opening vocals before Taylor joins him later in the song.
The video carries those memories into a new gathering. Directed by Jack Cole and featuring the morris dancing group Boss Morris, it takes its cue from the Espookio Halloween parties that Goddard remembered so fondly. Al Doyle says the band wanted to recapture their atmosphere, inviting dancers and figures dressed as woodland spirits and animals. Read alongside Goddard’s airport story, the costumes recall the shared nights he described, giving the video a connection to his memories beyond its dedication to McIvor.
There is a connection here with the record that came before it. Talking to Apple Music about Freakout/Release, Taylor described the enthusiasm of being able to make music together again, while Doyle spoke about hoping listeners could gather and enjoy it together too. That hope ran through the making of “Miss the Bliss”, whose choir included relatives and friends. Even as the album dealt with exhaustion and difficult thoughts, the band kept finding ways to bring other people into the room. With that history in mind, their choice to introduce the new album through the memory of a much-loved DJ feels like a continuation of a conversation they were already having.
On A Long Way From Kansas, the question of where to find that feeling of belonging sits within a harsher setting. The title borrows from Dorothy’s search for home in The Wizard of Oz. Taylor says the violence and discord of the world around the band were unavoidable while they worked, with distortion becoming a reference point for the music. His description suggests that the record’s rougher sound and its wish for connection grew out of the same circumstances.
The expanded cast gives that idea a practical form. Alongside the familiar voices, Felix Martin sings on a Hot Chip record for the first time, with Beth Ditto appearing on “Me In Your Head” and Eddie Chacon on “The Garden”. Both songs feature on the eleven-track album. Before January, though, the band are set to return to the club Goddard remembers in his account of meeting McIvor. Hot Chip have announced a DJ night with friends at Sub Club on 21 October 2026 to celebrate his life.
For anyone hoping to join them on the 2027 UK and European tour, the album pre-order is already open through the band’s official store. The store says orders placed before 23:59 on Tuesday 20 October 2026 qualify for tour-presale access, with one code per person. It also lists a no-purchase-necessary option for accessing the presale.
Ticketmaster lists presales for selected shows on Wednesday 21 October, ahead of general ticket sales on Friday 23 October 2026. The tour takes the band across the UK and Europe in February and March, including London’s Exhibition White City on 12 March. Tickets for that London show go on general sale at 10am BST on 23 October.
Read the band’s statements via Domino.
Photograph: Fiona Garden. Album artwork: Domino / Apple Music.
