Simian Mobile Disco - Live

As the best teachers earn your respect, they also teach with more than facts. Simian Mobile Disco are such teachers. Ever since formation in 2005, the duo has occupied a corner of electronic music saved for refined artists, perfectionists even, submerged in and committed to the craft of their music, free from the usual fads and phases that plague club music, and admirable in consistency and in output and attitude. Their live shows are exemplary of these fine qualities – demonstrating innovation, class and extraordinary ability.

‘Live’, recorded in on tour in Philadelphia, showcases choice cuts from each of their albums, though a new listener might find it easy to believe the tracks are from one album, one moment. The set perfectly represents the deftness of touch the duo has always had in following their own subtle path of progression. While club music, from the mid-noughties to now, has jolted and jerked embracing dozens of styles and genres, ditching them just as quickly, Simian Mobile Disco have retained a timeless sound based in a somewhat stellar drive for subtle euphoria.

The live and re-cut versions of ‘Hustler’ and ‘It’s The Beat’, huge at the time of their release, sit quite comfortably next to their more recent hits like ‘Seraphim’ and ‘Aspic’ thanks to the re- editing and live trickery of the pair. While ‘Sleep Deprivation’, the opener on debut album, ‘Attack Decay Sustain Release’, closes the show, sounding as euphoric and other-worldly as it ever did. The consistency of quality in the tracks and expert mixing combined with a perfect story-board progression for a live show make ‘Live’ a beautiful, mesmerising journey.

Unlike some of Simian Mobile Disco’s contemporaries, the set is not made by huge drops, but more a solid appreciation for the art of a live performance. Every bleep, squeak and clap is perfect and hypnotic momentum of the set make it impossible to start the record without finishing it. The only thing lacking is a greater presence of the crowd on the record that seems to be have mixed down, but it is the audible ecstasy of audience participation that truly makes a live album, though here the delicate simplicity and precise execution of the music more than makes up for it.