Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release

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Maybe "good bass" = old fart music? Perhaps it's a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from Bassment Jaxx etc. I gather that in the UK this is a very young scene.

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

i'd guess they are almost as old as jaxx they've been around as SIMIAN for almost as long.

― pisces, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

Nah. The Jaxx first records came out in 95. Chemistry is What We Are is from 2001.

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

haven't heard it but if it's anything like "it's the beat" it's fucking awful

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

See, I don't get that. To me "It's The Beat" is great. What's so awful about it?

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe "good bass" = old fart music?

lol, please to stfu.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

if I wanted to hear trebly quirky shit I'd make it rock music so I could get paid for it

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

'Tits And Acid' is the one i rly like but it could be better.

― blueski, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

It's Attention Defecit Disco.

― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

do you think the lack of bass that everyone complains about in blog house could have something to do with modern music programs? i read similar complaints about the field album lacking in bass and sounding "too ableton"

― creme1, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

compression is one of the big factors. everything is dulled. but the trend has been to move away from heavy or dominant basslines in other genres too (everything rap orientated inc. US hip-pop and grime derived stuff in the UK).

― blueski, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

It's the fact that it's designed to be listened to on laptop speakers rather than in clubs / on decent hi-fis. This is the tipping point when all the shit I've been wailing on about for the last 18 months that you lot have been ignoring starts to effect you in negative ways and you all realise I was right. We will hoist Dangermouse on the gallows before the month is out.

― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

but i'd say the centre of much of this music is those huge distorted bass guitar lines

xp

― creme1, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, but depending what you play those huge distorted bass guitar lines on, they don't actually exist.

― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

This is the tipping point when all the shit I've been wailing on about for the last 18 months that you lot have been ignoring starts to effect you in negative ways and you all realise I was right.

Oh yeah? Well I'm still gonna watch movies on my laptop gramps

― blueski, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:48 (nineteen years ago)

"Complaining" about the lack of bass in modern music such as The Field or SMD is like "complaining" about 303s being too bleepy. It's the nature of the medium and people are exploring it to find what can be done with it. At the very least, it gives the music a distinctive sound that is very "now". Looking back on the history of popular music, that's generally a good thing.

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

The Field doesn't have bass because it's a home listening type thing. The tracks he actually plays out, e.g. Over the Ice have bass. Presumably because he's not enough of a douchecanoe to inflict bassless dance music on people.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

oh god, the field, we saw him live last week and everyone fucking stood round the dj booth in a semicircle motionless like they were at some sort of laptop indie gig. dreadful.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

What exactly does he do though? Play records?

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

the field and simian mobile disco are a medium now? or even any way similar to each other?

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

CUT THE MIDRANGE
CUT THE BASS

― strongohulkington, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

i think "tinny, overcompressed 'dance music' that sounds best on low-res mp3s" is almost certainly a genre at this point

― strongohulkington, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

neither the field nor SMD sound remotely "now". if we're comparing bassless music then cassie's 'me & u' beats both of them hands fucking down.

What exactly does he do though? Play records?

well, yes, but when dance artists play dance records people are generally meant to dance.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

jess that sounds like you're describing MIA

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

wait, which MIA?

― strongohulkington, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.americasveterans.org/gif/pow-tall.gif

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:36 (nineteen years ago)

anyway beyond the facile bass/no bass red herring, the reason this sucks is that it sounds like the bad bits of electroclash, which first emerged about 5 years ago.

it's electrohouse minus the dance music, braxe minus the disco, just a big messy load of crap for the "omg electro rock! i am a cool indie now!" audience.

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

bird flu MIA

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

i would lump her in there too, yes!

― strongohulkington, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:45 (nineteen years ago)

I gotta say I like the fact that it's somewhat sloppy/messy. There's tons of micro-managed ultra-sleek music around, expecially dance music, so why not make room for some of this?

As for the indie fan thing, I don't know or care about that.

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, there's too much of that "music that doesn't sound like shit" going about. It's a real bummer.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:48 (nineteen years ago)

x-post nobody's stopping them from making it, people can like what they want.

dance acts like this make albums when they've stopped being interesting and have to milk their sound to ads and people who want to like "all types of music". in SMD's case I never found them interesting anyway.

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

"so much good music around! why not make room for some crap?"

xp!

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

fwiw i think a big reason this shit gets hype and other better dance music doesn't is because they have really good PRs

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:52 (nineteen years ago)

That's a good one!

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:54 (nineteen years ago)

God Ronan, you're such a snob, hating on this supposed audience. I don't care about who their audience is. I'm unlikely to ever see them in a live setting anyway. I've only ever listened to this on laptop speakers myself and it sounds just fine.

― everything, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:58 (nineteen years ago)

The Southall baiting continues unabated!

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

shut your blab and dance, you faggots

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:03 (nineteen years ago)

qed

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

you guys just don't like them cause theyre white!

― somuchsomuch24, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

Oh boy.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

It's not a house record, or even really a dance record. I mean, this stuff is explicitly designed for people who like the idea of dance music (cool bleepy noises, beats, erm that's it) without the reality (ie repetition, long build-ups, no song stuctures, tracks that last more than five minutes).

Taking it as a dance record is missing the point, this stuff has virtually no function outside being 'cool noise', which is all well and good as long as you think the noise in question is cool. I think I do, for now.

It's The Beat is rubbish though, worst thing on the album.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

i think the bad rap that "people who like everything" get is totally unfair.

― aaron d.g., Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:50 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, this stuff is explicitly designed for people who like the idea of dance music (cool bleepy noises, beats, erm that's it) without the reality (ie repetition, long build-ups, no song stuctures, tracks that last more than five minutes)

these people are fucking lame then!

i think the bad rap that "people who like everything" get is totally unfair.

i like everything, i mean i probably have the most varied taste of anyone on this thread, i just like everything to be what it is rather then a horrid indecisive messy hodgepodge.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

i probably have the most varied taste of anyone on this thread

Lex, meet 'self-awareness'.

Also, this ISN'T an indecisive hodgepodge. It knows EXACTLY what it wants to be. Just like electroclash did five years ago! And the people who are comparing it unfavourably to 2002-electro would have done exactly that if they'd been a) older and b) listening to dance music for years, in 2002.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:58 (nineteen years ago)

matt who else do you know who follows house/techno, r&b and teenpop as much as i try to??? and i pretty much like most other genres except the tiny irrelevant one of indie rock.

it's a mess, is what it is, and it sounds shit. shit music for shit people.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:00 (nineteen years ago)

Argh, that's terribly phrased. What I'm saying is that everyone I knew who was into house music from 1998-2001 absolutely slated electroclash and even early electrohouse for exactly the same reason this album is being slated.

Which is fine if you think it's shit, but comparing SMD unfavourably to electroclash is a bit silly.

(Alex there are more than four genres in the world)

― Matt DC, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

yes i know. i don't have time to actually pay attention to the others but i am open to every one of them. except ONE.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

Country?

― Matt DC, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 187 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I was a bit surprised by just how hostile the Pitchfork review of S&H was... judged as a compilation album entirely on its own merits, it's not great, but it's hardly terrible, and well above the standards of most of these remix comps. And the Chrome Hoof mix really is great.

― Telephone thing, Monday, 27 October 2008 16:42 (seventeen years ago)

hangover/apology for the good review they gave the album?

― skygreenleopard, Tuesday, 28 October 2008 06:28 (seventeen years ago)

eight months pass...

SMD - The Audacity of Huge...

Audaciously godawful.

― N1ck (Upt0eleven), Thursday, 23 July 2009 13:29 (sixteen years ago)

Yes. There's one or two alright ones on the new album (track 5 I think?), but overall very disappointing.

― plazzTT, Thursday, 23 July 2009 13:32 (sixteen years ago)

am expecting album to suck even tho i really liked the first one

― Aqua Teen Cunga Force (blueski), Thursday, 23 July 2009 13:43 (sixteen years ago)

The live show last night surprised me by actually being, like, completely awesome. Either they are just a million times better live than on record (admittedly a very strong possibility) or the album will actually be really good. Single still weak though.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 30 July 2009 08:40 (sixteen years ago)

2nd track they did was new and seemed like the best thing they've ever done

― unban dictionary (blueski), Thursday, 30 July 2009 09:29 (sixteen years ago)

Glad they've stepped up the live show. I think the first time I saw them was either their first or second time playing live and it lacked... pretty much everything. Seemed like they were very much still trying to figure out how to translate the record to a performable version. Hence why I didn't go last night.

― N1ck (Upt0eleven), Thursday, 30 July 2009 09:41 (sixteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

not sure if a new thread for Temporary Pleasure is really worthwhile because it's a bit of a let down (or, if you hated the first LP, more of the same but a bit worse)

i don't know if it's just that there seem to be fewer hooks or neat ideas (despite there being more songs and guest vocals on this one - the Beth Ditto one is OK but no stretch for her), or the drums are just so compressed that it doesn't sound v good unless really really loud...probably both. 'Synthesize' blew me away in the live show but that power doesn't come thru on the record quite as much (well not on standard headphones via spotify at least). i still like their 'celestial organ' type sounds but they haven't really varied or broadened the palette for this so ehh...

― unban dictionary (blueski), Wednesday, 19 August 2009 11:59 (sixteen years ago)

one year passes...

SMD have got an album of acid bangers (mixed into a short DJ set, style mix) coming out called Delicacies and it is fucking awesome.

Loads of tweaking acid, trance and techno done on all their vintage equipment.

You can keep lame hook ups with Kele Bloc Party and all that shit (although Hustler will always have place in my heart). This is what they're ace at.

― Duran (Doran), Thursday, 21 October 2010 17:26 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

no thread about the new stuff? hm seems not.

here's the new album stream on The Graun. check Your Love Aint Fair and Seraphim if you like techno-pop stuff.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/may/04/simian-mobile-disco-unpatterns-stream

― piscesx, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 15:10 (fourteen years ago)

"Hustler" still kicks ass - pleasant surprise whenever it comes up on shuffle.

― skip, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 15:56 (fourteen years ago)

yah i feel like ADSR got retroactively disowned or something. it's got a handful of great songs.

― caulk the wagon and float it, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 17:13 (fourteen years ago)

"cruel intentions" off their 2nd album is prob a top-10 song of the last 5 yrs for me

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 17:17 (fourteen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

I do love bits of the Shaw & Grossfeldt album ... which I think is SMD related?

― djh, Thursday, 28 August 2025 20:52 (nine months ago)

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