On my radar: Alexis Taylor’s cultural highlights

B orn in 1980, Alexis Taylor is the lead vocalist and keyboardist/guitarist of synthpop band Hot Chip. He formed the group with Joe Goddard while at school in Putney, London; he went on to study English at Cambridge. Hot Chip’s debut album was released in 2004 and its follow-up, The Warning, was shortlisted for the Mercury prize; their most recent is 2019’s critically acclaimed A Bath Full of Ecstasy. Taylor’s sixth solo album, Silence, is released on AWAL on 17 September; the album launch will be at the Rio Cinema, London, on 16 September. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

1. Exhibition

Use Hearing Protection: The Early Years of Factory Records, Science and Industry Museum, Manchester

Recently, I went to this immersive overview of the history of Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub. It’s a deep archival dig through memorabilia, ephemera, photographs and instruments. It goes way beyond music; there’s graphic design by Peter Saville, which is bold and arresting and immediate. There are handwritten letters and the stage set-up for Joy Division. It was very interactive; I really enjoyed being able to make a new mix of Love Will Tear Us Apart using the mixing desk there and the stems of that music.

2. Poetry

Selected Poems 1923-1967 by Jorge Luis Borges

I have often read Borges’s short stories, collections such as Labyrinths, but I was unfamiliar with his poetry until recently, when I was lent this book by my mum. His essays and short stories are clever and technically brilliant and sometimes a bit magical. These poems are a bit less like that; they’re more emotionally open. He reminds me of somebody like Cavafy, the Greek poet - they seem to be able to sum up what poetry and art can mean to the person who’s making art and say it in a way that is fairly vivid and easy to understand.

3. Television

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Netflix)

I’m sure lots of people will have heard of this comedy, but I only discovered it six weeks ago and I didn’t know any of the actors in it. I watch it with my wife and daughter every day. My daughter’s 12 and it doesn’t seem too adult for her, but it’s still really, really funny. I enjoy how all the characters in it are likable and make me want to see how their relationships develop, a bit like with Friends, but I never really found that very funny..

4. Podcast

Broken Record

This is long-form interviews with musicians, hosted by producer Rick Rubin, and it takes very seriously the art of making records. It’s easy for me to focus on artists I like and know a lot about, but with this podcast I can learn about somebody such as Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees, who I’ve listened to but not in great depth. I came away from it feeling fascinated by his career and wanting to delve deeper than I’d ever done before.

5. Art

Matthew Barney: Redoubt, Hayward Gallery, London

I’d been slightly starved of the art gallery experience for the past year and a half – this was the first show I went to since Covid hit. I used to watch Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle films in the early 2000s and it was nice to go back to his art again after a long break. There was a very cinematic art film about people looking for a wolf in the Idaho Rockies. Around the rest of the gallery, you can look at these huge sculptures that relate to scenes from the film and they are quite alien-looking and strange. I found it amazing.

6. Food

Cocktail Beer Ramen + Bun, Manchester

Two friends of mine took me here, in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and the food was really, really good. I’m vegan, but the menu included a bit of everything and you didn’t feel like you were just having a simplified version of something. Ramen is often about the broth having a good depth to it, and I haven’t really had a good vegan one before, but their green ramen was the best I’ve ever had; it was full of green vegetables, with interesting flavours put together. Everything felt really well balanced and there was a nice spiciness to certain dishes. We were happy customers.