Gig: Hot Chip

The bespectacled boffins who straddle the worlds of dance, indie and pop hit back this year with their fifth long player, the utterly fantastic In Our Heads, which they’ll be dipping into for this sure-to-be-best-of duo of shows.

Birthed in 2000 when members Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor found they had a mutually eclectic love of music, Chip’s first success came with Over And Over, an NME mag ‘best single’ award-winning guitar-led humdinger that soundtracked a summer (hell, the whole damn year).

Sophomore album The Warning, from which it was taken, stirred soul, disco and bona fide pop into the brew before they branched out further with the follow up, Made In The Dark, two years later.

Fusing house with electro, guitars and a pop song-orientated approach, as well as throwing many, many more genres into the mix, Hot Chip cemented their place as the chart-bothering indie band it was OK for dance heads to like, and vice versa.

Four years later and they’re a Brit scene institution who have toured the globe, smashed dancefloors everywhere and even branched out further this year with Goddard’s party-tracking The 2 Bears side project.

Support for Thursday night comes from Glaswegian sonic pirate Rustie, who’s worked with the likes of fellow genre-confounder Hudson Mohawke.

Lining up for the Chip’s second night is Scottish-bred, north London-based indie outfit Django Django, who have been nominated for next month’s Mercury Music Prize for their debut self-titled album.

Brixton Academy, 211 Stockwell Road, SW9 9SL
Oct 18-19 | Doors at 7pm |  £20 
Tube | Brixton 
http://www.o2academybrixton.co.uk

Gig: Mr Scruff

A music-fan-made-star, Andrew McCarthy, aka Mr Scruff, has been sharing his musical loves for years now, becoming a DJ par excellence in his own right.

Here, he makes one of his many sojourns to north London’s Koko for a night of tunes, taking in everything from hip-hop to electronica to left field oddities set to stun.

sat, oct 20. 9.30pm £15
Koko, 1a Camden High Street, NW1 7JE
Tube | Mornington Crescent 
koko.uk.com

 

Club: Disco Shed Presents – Trojan Soundsystem

The Book Club celebrates its third birthday with a face-off as two stalwarts of the festival scene come head to head. Disco Shed Soundsystem, represented by Count Skylarkin, Peepshow Paddy and DJ BarryDark, and Trojan Soundsystem’s Earl Gateshead and Daddy Ad are set to rock the dancefloor in this contest.

Fri, Oct 19. 8pm-2am £5
The Book Club
100-106 Leonard Street, EC2A 4RH
Tube | Old Street 
wearetbc.com

 

Club: Movida Corona DJ Contest UK Final

MoS and Movida Corona have teamed up for this nationwide hunt for the next superstar DJ.

There have been heats across the length and breadth of the country, culminating in this grand final at London’s legendary club, the winner going into the international finals, as well as nabbing a MoS DJ set, too.

Wed, Oct 16. 10pm-6am £5
Ministry of Sound
103 Gaunt Street, SE1 6DP 
Tube | Elephant & Castle 
ministryofsound.com/club

 

Gig: Errors

Post-electro rockers from north of the border bring their dense and diverse bass-heavy house-rock to town, in support of this year’s third long player Have Some Faith In Magic as well as the new EP New Relics, which landed earlier this month.

Like a dark, broody club scene that’s strapped a guitar on.

Thurs, Oct 18. 7pm £10.50
Heaven, Under The Arches, WC2N 6NG
Tube | Embankment 
heaven-live.co.uk

Club: Stafford Brothers

Matt and Chris are many things: world-touring house DJs, the first Australian deck-jockies to get their own reality TV show and their nation’s number one party soundtrackists two years running according to InTheMix DJ awards.

They are also playing this special Clapham Sunday show. Home-spun talent up close and intimate.

Sun, Oct 21. 3pm-11pm, free
Gigalum, 7-8 Cavendish Place, SW4 9DW
Tube | Clapham South 
gigalum.com

 

Gig: Grizzly Bear 

Nu-folk looked a dodgy, trad trend, but this Brooklyn troupe take the folk format and turn it on its head by injecting some Shins-esque pop hooks, some Field Music inventiveness and a load of Mogwai-muso-magic to their own creative blend of psych-rock aceness.

Touring in support of their latest album, Shields.

Mon, Oct 22. 7pm £22.50
Brixton Academy, 211 Stockwell Road, SW9 9SL
Tube | Brixton 
o2academybrixton.co.uk

 

Photos: Getty