Put some monkeys in a room with electronic instruments and chances are they’d make a dance record — another in a long line of assembly-line club-bangers.
But James Ford and Jas Shaw — the brain trust behind Simian Mobile Disco — are more than just some dance-crazy apes. The “saviours of dance music” (according to Fader magazine) follow their entrancingly eclectic debut Attack Decay Sustain Release with the stronger, sexier Temporary Pleasure (digitally now, on CD tomorrow). SMD give us more of what they do best: more beats, more melody, more super guest vocalists. Opener “Cream Dream” sets the tone — a wet dream of burbling synths floating atop the vocals of Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys repeating the title in three-part Beach Boys-esque harmony. Jamie Lidell claims to be “the man machine / the sex machine / and everything in between” on the electro-erotic “Off the Map.” And Gossip’s Beth Ditto drops by Studio 54 for some disco euphoria on “Cruel Intentions” that’s so authentic you can practically smell the polyester.
Dance music’s been around forever, maybe since the first time an ape banged a rock with bone. Yet when it works as well as it does all over Temporary Pleasure, you still marvel at how far it's come up the evolutionary ladder.
Temporary Pleasure is available digitally now and on CD tomorrow from Wichita Recordings.
