- Simian Mobile Disco are the English duo James Ford and Jas Shaw, originally of the band Simian. The two are undeniably meant to entwine their talents as musicians, they simply go well together. This is what allows them to ride the white line down the middle of the electronic music road, tiptoeing past EDM one hit genres which fall by the wayside. Longevity in diversity has kept them relevant and so we come to Murmurations, their sixth studio album.
Conceptually this work chases themes of collective movement, which interestingly parallels the symbiotic movement observed on dancefloors that have been the abode of Simian Mobile Disco since inception. This album pulses. It builds and grows, it seeps and flows. This makes more sense once you hear songs such as Caught in a wave, Gliders, A perfect swarm, V formation and of course, Murmuration. The album calmly led me to envision images of flora washed by the wind and insects, birds and fish flitting in numbers to form solid, moving, larger shapes.
There is quite a lot of singing on the album. It’s very complimentary and not bolted-on bombastic chorus one-liners. There are songs and chants that draw in the listener and beg for repeat plays. There is an organic hypnosis going on here which is testament to the boys' honed, electronic craft. I heard moments of Eat Static like mushroom-tea soaked, biological connectedness. There were snippets of Leftfield’s melodic throb and the whole album put me in mind of Banco de Gaia’s amazing 1995 classic, Last Train to Lhassa.
Overall Murmurations is a gently insistent album whose crafted hum, chanting, and oscillating paints a beautiful picture. Everything is finely mastered and mixed, it feels as an album should: a complete body of work. Murmations stands alone as a handsome, symphonious procession.
- Marcus Lavers.