Joe Goddard: Harvest Festival
Joe Goddard: Harvest Festival
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Wednesday, 25, Nov 2009 08:42
Greco-Roman, out November 23rd.
Who's it by?
Have you looked at a flyer for a averagely-good, vaguely underground club night taking place at a semi-legal venue (say a car park that actually has a licence and an entry on Don't Stay In) in East London in the last two years? Chances are you will have seen Joe Goddard's name on the flyer. About half way down probably. Below the actual headlines but about those soundsystems and MCs that promoters use to bulk out their posters. Of course, he won't have been billed as Joe Goddard. Most likely, he'll be there as Joe (Hot Chip), suffering the ignominy of not being as famous in his own right as the Mercury-nominated and basically amazing electro-pop outfit he plays synth, pianos and sings in most of the time. That's right, Joe Goddard is the big, slightly bear-like guy who isn't Alexis Taylor or the other ones in Hot Chip. And now he's got a record all of this own.
As an example...
"And bulls**t and party... And bulls**t and party... And bulls**t and party.... "
What the others say
"Harvest Festival feel like nothing more than a buffer; an appetizer. Ultimately this is smart but unfinished work. Goddard has found a rare thing in Taylor: a match; they make an implacable team. And they needn't stray to be great." - Pitchfork.com
"Philosophically, you would struggle to justify this record's existence. Containing zero surprises, the Hot Chip man's solo debut is a synthetic sun shower of analogue electronics." - Tony Naylor, NME
So is it any good?
There's nothing that special on here if we're honest. It's not terrible but Harvest Festival is hardly going to change your world, unless you are really high for the first time in your life at 4am at a squat party and the DJ plays Go Bananas just as you peak and you decide right there that music is energy and that every other person in the room is connected with you on a fundamental metaphysical level that goes above and beyond any connection that you've ever felt before. Even then, you'd probably feel slightly embarrassed about the whole thing when you wake up the next afternoon in your sweaty sheets desperately needing a pee and fighting that sense of crushing depression that comes when you wake up and find it's dark and you've basically missed a whole day of your life.
Everyone who has listened to Harvest Festival has basically said the same thing. And that's that it's nowhere near as good as anything that Hot Chip have done.
You know why everyone has said that? Because it's true.
Joe Goddard's solo effort, like Alexis Taylor's a while ago, isn't awful. It's just a bit forgettable in a way that most songs they've made together as Hot Chip aren't. In fact, there are lots of interesting things on Harvest Festival. The synths throughout are brilliant, reminiscent of Aphex Twin at his finest.
And when Goddard stops trying to make party bangers and goes for something more subtle, there are successful moments, including highlights such as opener Apple Bobbing and the brilliantly squelchy Pineapple Chunk.
All in all, the record leaves you feeling hopeful that the next Hot Chip album, with Goddard and Taylor working together again, will be a blinder.
7/10
James Cooper