Hot Chip, Brixton Academy

There is a general feeling, more like a permeating notion, amongst the giddy crowd at Brixton tonight, of something we can only aptly describe as confidence. Everyone is smug, above all comfortable, from the scattered kids sitting around on the sticky floor to the DJ, who this evening has chosen a leisurely selection of minimalist beats for the intervals. Not even the gaping (massively unfortunate) absence of Wiley as support can blemish their collective spirit. Everyone here, clearly, is poised for a particularly unbridled few hours. For good reason, no doubt: Hot Chip have weaned themselves a reputation, following appearances at Coachella, Bestival, Benicassim, Reading and most recently Glastonbury, for delivering almost pristine live performances, and there’s no reason why tonight’s sold out affair should be any exception.

First, though, we have Max Tundra (aka Ben Jacobs), every boy’s hope of what would be looking back at them in a mirror nearing middle age (though he isn’t), and a man whose musical habits elude every echelon of conventional, or even human, classification. This is never necessarily a bad thing. Almost immediately after striding to the front, he inundates and assails with a beat so convoluted and a sound disproportionately large for this one man’s effort, making use of every instrument, from guitars to thumb pianos, in the menagerie of toys and obscurity surrounding him. The crowd, soon enough, are hooked on what seems to be the sound of GMTV in a post apocalyptic future, as Jacobs concocts electro and superimposed vocals with a sanguine, optimistic style, flitting across the stage in the process. A remixed fairytale Goodbye song (complete with props) ends the multi-instrumental fisher-price fanfare, where Jacobs’ sound still comes off as fresh as it was in its late nineties birth.

A little later, as the night’s main event trail onto the stage behind a backdrop of February’s ‘Made in the Dark’ album art, and Al Doyle promptly lunges into ‘One Pure Thought’’s crisp opening riff, it becomes clear that this is a set honed and tweaked to perfection, both for the band and the fans. Hot Chip play flawlessly, Alexis Taylor, in vocals seeming particularly professional tonight, breaking every now and then only for Joe Goddard to enquire about the crowd, but never appear formulaic or rigid. They take glee in seamlessly adjusting, remixing, food processing their own songs, old and new, in the manner of a fan’s lucid daydream. The same zeal and Spartan energy they carried at the summer’s festival circuits, meanwhile, reverberates through the fans. The recent addition of Leo Taylor on drums adds a piercing quality to the songs, particularly potent in ‘Bendable Poseable’, ‘Out at the Pictures’ and an indefatigably epic version of 2006 classic ‘Over and Over’.

Though a lot of stock is placed on atmospherics tonight, featuring strobe lights, myriad lasers and giant balloons creating a rapturous haze, it’s Hot Chip’s intrinsic swagger, regardless of peripherals, that people will remember. The pseudo-electro, a penchant for dance beats far more intricate than the ailing Friday night club record, the ability to subdue themselves so smoothly onstage into relapses of soul, in title track ‘Made in the Dark’ and new song ‘Alley Cats’, and the metallic, immortal funk make marionettes of the eager crowd at every turn, without fail. Closing with the passionate ‘In The Privacy Of Our Love’, the Putney quintet this evening have proven themselves masters of the live performance.