So, we were sitting in the Green Room with Ringo Starr and Sir David Attenborough,' laughs Hot Chip's geekily cool frontman Alexis Taylor. 'Our drummer, Felix, was deep in conversation with Ringo all night: two drummers connecting with each other. It was really odd. I offered Attenborough some crisps, but I don't think he heard me. I got blanked, basically - but I saw him eating some later, so it can't have been a completely inappropriate thing to do...'

Seeing Hot Chip play the sublime electronic pop of Ready For The Floor on Jonathan Ross the week before last wasn't the exact point they became a crossover pop act; they'll have to have a proper hit first. But, for a band who now exist in a world where Kylie Minogue collaborations have been hinted at (though that was mostly Internet speculation), they're getting mightily close. If you believe bands have 'moments', the imminent release of their third album, Made In The Dark, is Hot Chip's.

'We're definitely in a moment where we're suddenly deemed appropriate to be on things such as Jonathan Ross,' muses Taylor, who formed the band with Putney school friend Joe Goddard in 2000. 'I don't have a problem with it at all because, essentially, it means you sell more records. The thing to remember is that we think we're making pop music but to a wider audience, Hot Chip still sound like an oddity next to, well, Ringo Starr, for example.'

Taylor then reminds me that their biggest song, the addictive lo-fi electronic groove of Over And Over, was released twice but still only made it to No.27. He's neither revelling in outsider status nor bemoaning their ill fortune; he's just stating a fact born of the knowledge that Made In The Dark contains even better songs.

Propelled forward by their pop sensibility - there are even ballads - it grapples with being sonically dense yet stripped down, great fun but lyrically melancholy. For Taylor, it's their greatest achievement so far.

'We've always listened to pop music from different eras, so the key is to try and make something sophisticated yet melodically simple, and I think we've done that. We don't write with clichés and we don't write something as direct as a Britney Spears song. There are experimental sides to everything we do.'

Crucially, though, the fun they have mangling electronics, wrestling new sounds from antique synthesizers and even adding the odd rock guitar is anchored in the three-minute pop structure.

As much as Shake A Fist has clatteringly harsh rave synths halfway through, the initial musical slap in the face is replaced by the happy realisation that Hot Chip are having a great time with the oddball music they love.

'Here's an example,' says Taylor. 'We all love Steve Reich. But that doesn't mean Hot Chip are going to create a 25-minute minimalist composition to prove that to people. It can filter through in a more subtle way.'

Despite the pounding percussion and the sense that Made In The Dark has a groove perfect for the live arena, Hot Chip are certainly subtle, not least because Taylor's lyrics and vocal style are, refreshingly, a world away from the 'put your hands in the air' or 'Superstar DJ, here we go' banalities of much electronic music.

'The thing is, we're not most electronic music,' he argues. 'We're really not. We're not a dance group that happens to have melody and lyrics. I'd argue we're more interesting than that. We want to innovate but create songs with longevity.'

So, in that case, the lyrics take on huge importance.

'I don't want to sound pretentious but I write about the human condition, so yes. Take the title track. It's got a local level, about getting together with the person I ended up marrying and how we made our relationship in the darkness, in a room somewhere. Making love, basically. But also I'm talking about humanity: we don't understand our existence. And then there's Hot Chip itself. We've created this thing that is made unconsciously in a way, and plays live and DJs; a nocturnal thing.'

But the key to Hot Chip's charm is that they're not always so grand or serious. Yes, some songs are about being alive and making sense of the world but minutes later there will be a song such as Wrestlers. Dripping with double entendres, it could almost be a grinding r'n'b pastiche if it wasn't for Taylor's well-documented love of R Kelly.

'You can't be insular and personal all the time,' he says. 'Made In The Dark does have that considered messiness about it that I really like. The Beatles' White Album is all over the place; the mood and the tempo changes but somehow it works. I wanted our album to have that feel.'

Talk of the Fab Four, of course, means we've come full circle. But in the way that Hot Chip are unafraid to take musical risks, to explore new ways of creating pop, they are from the same lineage. Try them, Ringo: you might just like them.

Ready For The Floor (EMI) is out today. Made In The Dark follows on February 4. They play Brixton Academy on February 29.