Hot Chip: "My Piano"

This first twenty minutes or so of the Hot Chip-curated latest installment of the DJ Kicks series might actually justify spending twenty bucks on what amounts to a mix CD by people who own mixers and faders. It's almost exactly how you'd imagine a dance mix by a group versed in a type of irony that doesn't make a sacrifice of a good time for the sake of cred.

And pinned between jostling old school hip-hop, rejuvenated jive, and sleek techno is the mandatory contribution by the mix's masterminds, "My Piano." Not nearly as eccentric a personality piece as the band's usual geekouts, the song unobtrusively situates itself in sequence and holds the fort, managing the tempo and not accrediting too much prestige or honor to the notion that it's Hot Chip's show to run.

As a Hot Chip song, "My Piano" is disappointingly restrained and doesn't make use of the band's wry humor or contrasting sensibilities. It may in fact be the most conventional song the band has ever performed. But that Hot Chips' contribution to the DJ Kicks series is so refreshingly free of ego while still enthusiastic about their fetish properties, that Hot Chip have made a mix for the listener as opposed to for themselves, makes "My Piano" a fit. The song argues emphatically for the album's excellence.