Chip Fotovideo

UK jazz master Chip Wickham follows last year’s brilliant soulful long-player Cloud 10 with a deftly crafted, reflective EP of beautiful spiritual jazz influenced by the soulful sounds of Yusef Lateef. Chip’s music has always drawn on a broad world of influences: from hip-hop to Roland Kirk, and from classic funk to the ‘60s Brit-Jazz of Tubby Hayes. But Love & Life finds him foregrounding his wonderful flute playing, producing a perfect four-tracker of reflective, peaceful jazz that elevates and inspires as well as a trademark slice of boppish soul jazz – the jaunty Space Walk.

It's interesting to note that Hot Chip's string of great albums - beginning with Made in the Dark - coincided with their exploration of the joys of long-term relationships. Celebrating monogamy while avoiding monotony applies to how they make music, as well: on the surface, Why Make Sense? is another album of wry, kinetic electro-pop from a group that has mastered the style, but it also builds on Hot Chip's roots - and dance music's origins - in ways that sound fresh. The band reunited with In Our Heads producer Mark Ralph, and they expand on that album's joyousness, this time imbuing it with elements of R&B, hip-hop, and, especially, disco. "Huarache Lights" feels like the album's mission statement, from its slow and steady groove and un-ironic talkbox to its sample of First Choice's "Let No Man Put Asunder," a sizzling disco testament to commitment that was also sampled by the prime movers of house and techno's early days…