Hot Chip Take 'Relaxed' Approach on Fourth Album

When it came time to start working on their fourth album, Hot Chip were determined not to rush things. The British electropop band set aside a full year to work on 'One Life Stand,' multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle tells Spinner.

"It was a really nice, long and relaxed process, which we wanted it to be," says Doyle, who plays guitar, synthesizer and, believe it or not, flugelhorn on the album. "We deliberately made a decision at the end of the 'Made in the Dark' tour that we weren't going to do any shows at all for 12 months and make sure that amount of time was for writing the album and doing all of the other projects that we've been working on this year. I think it's paid off: The album feels very complete and very fully formed, which we're pleased about."

Hot Chip leaders Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor brought songs to the rest of the group, which spent eight weeks recording them in the London studio Doyle runs with bandmate Felix Martin. Then the band spent months tinkering with the arrangements.

"We had over 100 tracks on each song, so you have to filter out and discard a lot of stuff and decide what you want the song to be and what's important in terms of its instrumentation," Doyle says.

Some of that instrumentation includes Doyle's flugelhorn on a few of the 10 songs, though he is quick to note that he's still learning the instrument.

"Just to be clear, I'm really, really bad at flugelhorn at the moment," he says, laughing. "The notes that I can play are the notes that are on the album. Luckily, the rest of the band were quite encouraging."

'One Life Stand' is set for release on Feb. 9, 2010.