As the lazy summer draws to a close and, in a mood of gentle melancholy, autumn begins to repaint the land in hues of red, gold and brown, our thoughts turn to a new phase for Hot Chip.

Whilst many of you are contemplating a return to school, college or university, your favourite synth-wielders are preparing for another period of major touring. We've said pretty much all that can be said on a festival stage, and with only a handful more to play, we're going back to playing club shows, one of which may be taking place near you. Please check the performances page for details.

And although we're very excited to be playing our own shows again, we'd also like to thank each and every fan or casual observer for making all our festival shows this year so much fun. Oh, and sorry about the rain, for those it rained on; sorry about the technical difficulties, if any of you saw shows that had those; and sorry for talking so much rubbish on the stage all the time and robbing you of much-needed rave-up opportunities.

David Byrne & Brian Eno are releasing a new album called "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today" and judging by the free track that you can download from the album website, it's going to be good. It's released on August 18th when you can stream it for free from their website or purchase it for download.

LINK TO THEIR WEBSITE & FREE MP3

Thanks to Lindsay for putting this my way.

Things are still happening to us on a daily basis.

We've just arrived in Japan for a week of shows. We're pretty huge over here, with literally dozens of fans waiting in anticipation for our first show here in nearly a year. With our latest record flying of the shelves at a rate of literally a dozen since it was released in February (6 months ago), we are sure to be carried triumphantly through the bustling streets of Tokyo after our show tomorrow tonight. Either that or a quiet journey back to the hotel in a cab.

In the last few weeks we've been working on a whole bunch of stuff. There are remixes too numerous to detail, a special cover version of a rather unlikely nature, a collaboration with one of our greatest musical heroes, and some bits and bobs that might eventually coalesce into a new album at some unknown point in the future.

Also, we have played festivals all across Europe and will continue to do so until someone notices that we are playing far too many of them. So you can see us at the Pukelpop and Lowlands festivals next week or the V Festivals in the UK the weekend following that. Finally, Felix and Al played at We Love... Space in Ibiza last weekend which went pretty well, though a more unlikely couple of chaps you couldn't imagine strolling along the nudist beach the morning afterwards without a care in the world. We'll be back there in September (at Space, not the nudist beach).

If you are a user of Ableton Live software and a fan of Hot Chip or just a fan of me generally, you may find the following video diverting, interesting or thrilling based on your level of enthusiasm for any of the above. Thanks to Graham and everyone at Ableton for doing such a nice job. Believe it or not they've even used some kind of nice visual effect to make me look better which I really do appreciate.

LINK TO VIDEO

We recently pointed out the similarity between our telecaster and the one used by Ween, which was very pleasing to me personally. Having seen Neil Young recently at the Werchter Festival in Belgium, I did a little research into his guitar, "old black", which we saw in action, at the side of the stage, in his epic set closer, No Hidden Path. It turns out that amongst the heavily-customised features of this legendary axe, there is a Gibson Firebird pickup; the Firebird being the guitar that Alexis uses on stage, you know, the one with the chrome silhouette of a reclining naked lady on the front. So that's another little technological link between us and one of our heroes.

By the way, our festival run this weekend was hard work but fun, and we had more fun on stage at Werchter and Roskilde than we've had in a long while - thanks be to the crowds and the fans that spurred us on. Arvika in Sweden was a refreshing change from the normal festival setup - a completely non-commercial, home-made-style festival in the wilderness. Next weekend we're a little closer to home, performing at Oxegen in Ireland and T in the Park in Scotland...

Here is a link to a video that our dear friend Lindsay Pollock made for us several years ago. Originally it was intended for our chart smash 'Boy From School' but those in the know dictated that it was too strange for popular taste. Since then Lindsay has revisited the material and cut it to the sounds of our non-chart eligible smash 'Colours', in a version that was recorded live for the BBC some years ago.

OLD VIDEO FOR THE HOT CHIP SONG 'COLOURS'

The site it is from is a new blog called Me Laughs Me Eyes which me & Lindsay have made. Among other things, we have recently added an MP3 of the full version of Felix & Al's song 'The Stone That the Builder Rejected', which was recorded under the name Lanark and featured on the 2007 DJ Kicks compilation. We will also be serializing the autobiography of Mr T., so keep checking back for updates.

Click below to see the first in a series of six Hot Chip behind the scenes videos!

Come back every Tuesday for the next five weeks to watch a brand new episode.

#1 (release date June 10)

LOW QUALITY

MEDIUM QUALITY

HIGH QUALITY

We've just recently returned from a bracing tour of the bottom-right area of europe, bringing our peculiar brand of flange-pop to Croatia, Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany. Some of the vegetarians in the band were faced with sparse meal choice, but apart from this very slight inconvenience the tour was pronounced a success. Many thanks to all of our fans who turned up to the shows and festival appearances; and if you weren't fans and were more just curious types, then I hope we helped pass the time in an entertaining manner.

Meanwhile, here's a video for a song off our previous album, "colours". It was made by Lindsay Pollock and helps pass the time in an entertaining manner.

the next Greco-Roman event will be on saturday 14th June at Jacks in London Bridge. We will be announcing full details soon but I just wanted to let people know the date. It will be open all night and will feature an excellent range of DJs and live bands. take care, Joe

We didn't play at the Gatecrasher festival yesterday, and would like to apologise sincerely to any fans who bought tickets and may have wanted to see us perform there. The stage was deemed unsafe by our technical crew, and it looked like any performance would have been short lived, as our equipment would soon have short-circuited in the rainy conditions, with the additional possibility/probability of our good selves receiving hefty electric shocks. So after long deliberation we had to cancel the show, and we were not alone in making this decision, as I believe other bands also could not play the main stage.

So again, we regret the way the situation panned out, and hope that people might have the opportunity to see us at some of the other UK festivals we're playing this summer, including Glastonbury and Bestival.

Kind regards,

Hot Chip