That said, the premise is not hard to grasp; independent record label !K7 ask a band they think are The S**t to compile a mix of the artists and tracks that the chosen band themselves like or have been inspired by. There is a very nice explanation in the sleeve that takes the latter point further but I’ll leave that alone for now. Further research allowed me to discover that every DJ Kicks mix album includes at least one track by the guest artist because, as we all know, self-promotion is not a bad thing. Hot Chip chose to include on here a completely new track titled ‘My Piano’ which will hopefully feature on the new album coming later this year.

So, to the most important part, the music of which this mix is made up of. If you’re just looking for one word that sums up this album because you have a short attention span or are just judgmental I give you this: Messy. Depending on what mood you happen to be in, the lack of structure can be a good or a bad thing because after a few tracks you could either be thinking ‘holy crab cakes Batman this is so random and funky’ or ‘where’s the mute button Charlie Brown? This doesn’t make sense’.

When I listen to this album now I skip straight to track 10, sing along for a while and then decide if I can be bothered to listen to anymore. This does not bode well for the album’s rating seeing as ratings are for albums in their entirety and not standalone, jazzy tracks. This is ‘a small catalogue of pleasing eccentricities’ and was put together by Hot Chip one lazy Sunday afternoon by picking records out at random, laying them out so that the combined cover art looked like a rainbow and playing them in that order. It would depend on who was at the party as to whether this would go down well or not.

6/10

Released: 05/07
Label: !K7