About two weeks ago I received a text message: "What shall we call the next Hot Chip album?"

Hot Chip, a band with a musical scope that far belies their snappy name, are perhaps one of the hardest modern pop acts to classify. But there, I've just done it with the word "pop". Of course, Hot Chip's music is pop music, but what else is it? Well, a lot else. As I made my way to the venue I remembered I still hadn't replied to that text. Maybe their performance tonight would give me some ideas.

Taking the stage to Black Sabbath and starting their set with an accelerating four-note synth-prog riff frenzy, they showed Somerset House that if last year's monster hit Over & Over was promoting the joys of repetition, this entrance was so joyous it went beyond euphoria to a point at which it hurt. And it hurt so good. Their first song proper was a new jerky funk track, in a similar vein to Careful from The Warning. So, could I reply to the text yet? I thought against it and had a boogie to Boy From School instead. And that's some good boogie music.

As multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle announces, the band will be playing a mix of new and old stuff so I keep my ears pricked for any obvious new furrows they may be ploughing. From the new material displayed at tonight's sell-out show, and with my amateur music critic cap on, I classed two of these furrows thusly:

"Gospel-Tinged-Blue-Eyed-Soul" - with the achingly beautiful We Were Made In The Dark, which could fit comfortably in the songbook of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and was the vocal highlight of the entire Summer Series - probably.

"Tribal House" - indicated by an instrumental break featuring both congas and bongos (although this is more in the furious Liquid Liquid style than some Womad wig-out).

Hang on, here I am trying to put my good friends in a neat little pocket just like so many others before. I chastise myself for being a pretentious loser. "Nu-rave"? To be honest, Hot Chip are more "rave" and that merely describes one smidgen of their output. Sure, the dance heads present at Somerset House should be well happy tonight as Felix Martin's control of the "drop" and the "break" is impeccable, but so too should those who fell in love with Hot Chip's sense of fun after being well fed with a brilliant version of The Beach Party. Even people with a thirst for axe-shredding are not left out as Al's solo during the opening of Crap Kraft Dinner gets a cheer.

The set closes with No Fit State, during which guitar-wielding Owen Clarke covers the stage like the Grinch. Finally, Alexis treats us to his rendition of New Order's Temptation. A little trick he's employed on numerous occasions (see the section Crap Kraft Covers at www.hotchip.co.uk) and tonight it works really well.

So I’m on the way home in the cab and I’m thinking, “Right, let’s give them an album title to chew on”. Has their set tonight given me a hint for a new direction? Well, the short answer is no. It's just me trying to be clever and failing; and herein lies the point of Hot Chip's music, it's just that: 'Hot Chip Music'. The resulting layers of their collective musical influences far outweigh some kind of neat pigeonhole. I settle for "Layers of the Onion", or how about “Man, they sound good live!”.

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