SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO – DELICACIES

As electronic music continues to make itself at home in the gamut of general tastes, it’s sounds and colours start to blend with those of its predecessors, like ink bleeding into wet paper. While Delicacies, the third studio album from UK’s Simian Mobile Disco, is ostensibly minimal tech house, there is a warmth and organic quality to the sounds that, although subtle, offers more of a relationship to listeners than might be expected from such a usually clinical, synthetic style. SMD join the likes of Justice, Air and Daft Punk, all of whom have crossed over successfully with their attention to detail and skill with analogue production. The opening track, Aspic, is bouncy; subtle reverb and warm layered synthesizers take us to an exclusive cave, most probably the minds of producers James Ford and Jas Shaw. The smoothly industrial Casu Marzu lulls us into a false sense of security before taking the rhythmic ground out from underneath us with glitchy, scattered percussion and humming machine synths. By the time the tumbling bass lines of Skin Cracker cascade down, it’s clear that this is a record to be experienced alone and in no rush. The delicate spaces and textures offered up by SMD are a personal journey that you can almost taste. Delicious.

****