“Black Hot Soup” is a smooth synth pop song with acoustic guitar riffs and a syncopated rhythm that ends on a dark, climatic build akin to songs like “The Fourth Colour.”
The song refers to two different things and connects them through wordplay. The first is hot pot — a Chinese dish that inspired much of Butterfly 3000 (see “Shanghai”). The other, however, is the world and, ultimately, the universe at large. In a Stereogum interview, Stu said, “I guess I’m talking about the universe, and it’s just a further zoom-out. It’s like: Maybe the universe is conscious. Maybe the universe is a butterfly. Is the universe alive? Can it dream? Can it think? It’s just further zooming out on our butterfly.”
The song was one of the first songs on Butterfly 3000 to be written as it was originally created for the film Chunky Shrapnel. In an NME interview, Stu said, “we had the song ‘Dreams’, a synth pop thing that was clearly wrong for it. We just accidentally made this music that felt like it warranted its own project. And ‘Shanghai’ came then ‘Black Hot Soup’ and ‘Ya Love’, and it felt like enough to hold a record and we should explore this concept super deeply.”
The song was originally meant to be the album’s closer according to the previously mentioned Stereogum interview, but switched positions for “Ya Love” and “Butterfly 3000.” Stu said: “...I didn’t want the record to end on a dark note. It just felt like a cop-out. The whole thing we were trying to achieve on this record was for it to not feel so ominous and sinister, because we’ve done that a lot of times before. The idea for the record was to keep zooming out, and for it to just feel bigger and bigger. We’re talking about planet Earth or Gaia, and then we’re talking about the universe, but it felt like maybe the nicest way to end it is to just go internal and ultra-personal: ‘I’ve been thinking about this whole idea of metamorphosis, and maybe now it’s time for me to be the butterfly.’”
Recorded by Ambrose (percussion/vocals), Cavs (drums), Cookie (electric guitar/percussion/synthesizer) and Stu (synthesizer/acoustic guitar/vocals/bass/percussion), the song was released on June 11th, 2021 as part of Butterfly 3000.
It later appeared in a full album video filmed at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles released on the 24th.
A music video for “Black Hot Soup” directed by Guy Tyzack was released on August 11th, 2021. It shows the band going on a quest for soup through a variety of different locations while being watched by the “soup wizard” in a blue robe.
The video features extensive use of green screens and datamoshing, as well as Terry Gilliam-esque cutout animation akin to the Black Beast of Argh chase scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
According to an interview with It’s Nice That, it was originally meant to be a completely live action video shot in Great Otway National Park but had to be changed due to a COVID-19 lockdown. Instead, the band was put in front of a green screen at the band’s studio for forty-five minutes each to get a wide variety of clips for editing. When it was all done, the video was put to VHS tape to get the final result.
“Black Hot Soup” makes a few references to older videos from the band. The “soup wizard” originally appeared in the video for “Gamma Knife” and was later seen in the video for “Invisible Face.” The wizard is played by David Macrae, who appeared in the “Gamma Knife” video as well as the music video for “Le Risque” and ”Oink Oink” Flight b741: The Making Of…”. “Black Hot Soup” also references the music video for “Cellophane,” with the wizard flying inside of a TV screen reminiscent of Stu’s voyage.
Like all Butterfly 3000 videos, it would be featured on the Blu-Ray Butterfly 3000: Ocular Edition.
“Black Hot Soup” was remixed only once for the album Butterfly 3001 but ended up becoming the biggest single.
The “DJ Shadow ‘My Own Reality’ Re-Write” features a chopped drum beat and a bouncy bassline accented by Stu’s scratched vocals — often focusing on the line “in my own reality.”
On January 7th, 2022, the band uploaded a music video for the remix featuring John Safran dancing, drinking and doing drugs in a number of locations. The video also features John Dimoulas, who later appeared in the live video for “Magenta Mountain.” In Gizzymail 22, Lucas wrote “Safran and Shadow crossover? Our teenage minds are still blowing…”
Storyboards and cue sheets from the video were later released in Book 1. A limited 12” single for the song was released in November of 2022 with its b-side being “(etirW-eR 'ytilaeR nwO yM' wodahS JD) puoS toH kcalB” — a reversed version of the song that requires you to play the record backwards to hear the track correctly.
“Black Hot Soup” has never been played live.