Simian Mobile Disco announce live-recorded new LP (video trailer), playing PS1 Warm Up this summer ++ other dates
Simian Mobile Disco‘s new album, Whorl, is due out September 9 via Anti. The process for making this one was a little unusual, at least in 2014: the record was recorded live. mostly from a show at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California. No laptops, no Ableton, just modular synths and one sequencer each for James Ford and Jas Shaw. That’s the album art above, a snippet from first single “Tangents” can be heard in an album trailer below, and Shaw elaborates on the recording process:
The recordings we did in the studio while we were writing and rehearsing the new material for Whorl were simply “live” takes – the system we’re using has limited ability to save patterns in the sequencer, but nothing like the flexibility of a computer. Live performance and studio composition are essentially now the same process, rather than the common method of writing a track using the computer, and then working out ways to perform it live. We planned not to slavishly limit ourselves just to this performance – when we came to mixdown the album, we used portions of three sessions – the show itself, an extended jam we did in the desert the day before, and a little of our London studio rehearsal.
A tour is planned where the duo will perform Whorl in much the same way as it was made. Only dates announced so far for those are Tokyo and London. Stay tuned.
SMD, who played NYC not so long ago, do have non-Whorl dates as well, including Warm Up at Long Island City’s MoMA PS1 on August 2 (tickets). All dates are listed, along with the album trailer, below…
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Simian Mobile Disco “Whorl” Trailer
SMD – ‘WHORL’ tracklist
01 Redshift
02 Dandelion Spheres
03 Sun Dogs
04 Hypnick Jerk
05 Dervish
06 Z Sphere
07 Nazard
08 Calyz
09 Jam Side Up
10 Tangents
11 Iron Henge
12 Casiopeia
Simian Mobile Disco – 2014 Tour Dates
SAT 21 JUN Hostess Weekender, TOKYO (WHORL)
FRI 04 JUL Twisted Pepper Dublin, Ireland
SAT 05 JUL Pratersauna Vienna, Austria
FRI 11 JUL Electric Elephant 2014 Tisno, Croatia
FRI 25 JUL La Machine du Moulin Rouge Paris, France
FRI 25 JUL Tramlines 2014 Sheffield, UK
SAT 26 JUL Tramlines 2014 Sheffield, UKAugust 2014
THU 14 AUG Green Man Festival 2014 Powys, UK
SAT 02 AUT PS1 Warm Up NYC
SAT 23 AUG South West Four 2014 London, UKSeptember 2014
MON 08 SEP Unknown Festival Croatia 2014 Rovinj, Croatia
TUE 09 SEP Union Chapel London, UK (WHORL)
SAT 20 SEP Metro Dance Club Alicante, Spain
