Album Review

Simian Mobile Disco – Delicacies

• 17th Dec 2010

While this may be a hamper of delicacies, it is ultimately a techno album, red in tooth and claw. It seems that Simian Mobile Disco have shaken off what were possibly previous phases they went through and gone back to the source. The first time I saw SMD live, it was an artfully DIY affair. They not only mashed up genres but also technologies, using hardware drum machines and even a Speak &Spell in liberal dashes. Techno has always been about visions of the future through machine music so it’s now good to see SMD developing by going back to the future.

This is a collection of the 2010 releases from SMD’s Delicacies imprint. Some of which have been getting proper plays from proper European techno DJs, such as Terence Fixmer. That means that this is no loungey, head bobby-type affair; these singles were made for club space.

Most pleasing of all, the 32 bar breakdown and rush is back. In fact it’s all here; rim shots; call and reprise midi lines; clipped and phase-y hats: the lot. And it’s moody. We have brooding, dark, wobbly bass lines, and in Casu Marzu, there’s a winning glitchy hat line over the top of the bass which keeps interest. Then there are bleeps, fizzes, flammy kicks, Plastikman-like snares and paradiddles. All of which are brilliantly layered to add variation without complication or showboating. The phasing, mobius-style loop on Thousand Year Egg comes across like Schopenhauer meets Planetary Assault Systems in a deceptively absorbing way.

Similar to the way Dave Clarke et al’s techno uses industrial sounds hooked on a house tempo, here on Delicacies there are pleasing juxtapositions – the velvet fist in the iron glove. Putting the conceit of the food titles to one side, for a compilation this still feels like a whole album rather than a rag bag, which indicates to me that we have a good quality assurance process in place on this new imprint. The 12” length of the tracks also allows them to develop nicely, which makes a refreshing change from the Tourettic, disco-edit stuff that’s still refusing to go quietly. I, for one, am looking forward to the 2011 releases and the next compilation from Delicacies.