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Jas and I had already started DJing while we were in the band" says James, one half of Simian Mobile Disco, on how SMD triumphed after their band Simian dismantled
"We started out playing really eclectic sets, because it was more what we wanted to hear – we’d play stuff like Sun Ra, Raymond Scott, really all over the shop. But we really, really enjoyed it, and that was the main thing. Then when the band split up, we sort of carried on DJing. We’d already started doing a few remixes while we were in the band, and we were also making mixtapes that represented our DJ sets at the time; some of them got printed up by the label – mixtapes called Simian Mobile Disco. They were just little promos, but that’s where we made the name up; because we were in Simian, it was just a jokey name. If we’d thought about that band ending and this being a new band, we would’ve made up a new name, but it didn’t work like that.” The duo have now mixed a stonking CD for the FABRICLIVE series and are keen to dispel people's preconceptions that they only play stuff like that Justice remix. For instance hey finished their set at Wild In The Country last year with Aphex Twin's Windowlicker, which got the biggest reaction of their set.
"Maybe people expect us to play Ed Bangers or distorted electro" continues James, "but we don’t play any of that stuff. We’ve just been DJing in America and I think, there especially, Justice are doing really well - obviously with our association with them, people expect us to play that sort of music. I suppose we play quite minimal stuff, really stripped-out disco. But that’s just the stuff we’re excited about.”
The mix flits from nu-disco grooves into twitchy minimal and quirky tech house, right through to the rampant electro smack of Jelo vs Deadmau5's Reward Is Cheese “We dug through a lot of stuff that’s not very current. With a lot of mix CDs, you do them and you know it’s just going to go out and do its thing, but we always think a fabric mix is something that sticks around a lot longer. We weren’t aiming to make it the most current mix of tunes; of course there will be a few new things but a lot of it is us digging back into our record collections, just the stuff that people may have forgotten about, or that went overlooked.”
The launch party is on August 1st at Fabric, and the CD is out on August 11th.
Tracklisting:
01 Tomita - The Firebird – Infernal Dance Of King Kastechi [Clean Version] – SonyBMG
02 Sisters Of Transistors – The Don – This Is Music
03 Simian Mobile Disco – Simple - Wichita
04 Hercules And Love Affair – Blind [Serge Santiago Version] – EMI
05 Smith N Hack – Space Warrior – Errorsmith and Soundhack
06 Discodeine – Joystick – Dirty
07 Shit Robot – Chasm – DFA
08 Perc & Fractal – Up Tool – Kompakt
09 Metro Area – Miura – Environ
10 Worthy – Crack EI – Leftroom
11 Moon Dog – Suite Equestria – Roof
12 Fine Cut Bodies – Huncut Hacuka – Chi Recordings
13 Bentobox vs Chordian – Aemono - Imprimé
14 Jelo & Deadmau5 – The Reward Is Cheese – Rising Trax
15 Simian Mobile Disco - Sleep Deprivation [Simon Baker Remix] – Wichita
16 Popof – The Chomper [LSD Version]– Turbo Recordings
17 Raymond Scott – Cindy Electronium – Basta
18 Paul Woolford Presents Bobby Peru – Erotic Discourse – 2020 Vision
19 Moebius Plank Neumeier – Pitch Control – Sky Records
20 Plastikman – Spastik – Mute
21 Green Velvet – Flash – Relief Records
22 The Walker Brothers – Nite Flights [Album Version] – SonyBMG