Album of the Week: Simian Mobile Disco - Delicacies

Album of the Week: Simian Mobile Disco - Delicacies

3 December, 2010 | 4.06AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, delicacies, plugged in, simian mobile disco

Simian Mobile Disco follow up their recent mix album, Is Fixed, with Delicacies, an album of powerful, occasionally perplexing techno that marries analog sound design to a spontaneous, exploratory sense of structure.

They may have made their names with electro-pop crossover hits, but these days the duo of James Shaw and James Ford are clearly more interested in a very different kind of banger. The eight instrumental tracks on Delicacies, a few of which were already released as singles on the duo’s Delicacies label, draw inspiration from jittery, hard-edged sounds of ‘90s techno; they’re classic, but never merely conventional. It helps that they know their way around a studio, foregoing VSTs and computer shortcuts in favor of vintage gear, custom kit, and machines that have minds of their own.

We asked SMD to introduce us to a few of their favorite machines; James Shaw responded with profiles of three of their key devices: Sequential Circuit’s hoary DrumTraks, the Analogues Systems modular, and a strange beats they call “the wardrobe synth.” Read on for his tour of their drool-worthy collection.

The Analogue Systems modular synth

The silver “telephone exchange” synth that we tour with was actually my first modular synth. Although most people think it’s made by Doepfer, it’s made by a Cornwall-based synth company called Analogue Solutions.

It’s a relatively modern synth by the standards of our studio in that it’s about 10 years old. The circuits are recreations of classic synth parts, like Moog filters or EMS VCOs, and you can assemble a system that suits your own needs.

Mine came from Bath, off a classified ad on some recording or synth forum. When I went to go and pick the box up, I recognised the seller as Nick McCabe, guitarist from the Verve. I was a huge fan of the first Verve album and went to see them play quite a few times. Sometimes they were amazing and sometimes it all just fell apart into white noise, but I’ve always liked bands that are inconsistent live. I had a bit of a fan-boy moment.

That summer I rarely left our flat; I spent all day and much of the night sat in front of it with headphones on, patching, tuning, and writing down what I found. There is really no set way to use an analogue synth; it’s a bit like being able to assemble a synth out of Legos, a filter here, an envelope there. Once you get to a certain level of rat’s nest complexity, things start to behave oddly, not as they did before. That’s when we press “record.”

You can hear this all over our first two records; it made drums, basses, lead sounds, odd FX. We could easily make an album using nothing but this synth.

The DrumTrax

I bought the DrumTrax off US eBay and had it sent to a mate’s flat. We picked it up at the start of the tour and immediately put it into the live rig. It’s really easy to program and syncs easily with that other gear, so it was a great extra toy.

After our last gig, a hot and sweaty festival in San Diego, a football match started between a bunch of bands. I hate football, but James was drunk enough to think that it was a good idea. Later, we got a call from him: he had broken his collarbone trying to save his beer as he fell over, running after the ball—at least he still had his priorities straight. I remember pushing him through the airport in a wheelchair, woozy with the Vicodin that he’d been given, with the DrumTrax laid across his knees. He looked like Dr. Strangelove, and though he was in great pain, it was a little bit funny. Even he could see that. It’s been retired to our studio as it started to freak out mid-set, and the last thing we need is more broken gear on tour with us. Since then it’s become one of our three main drum boxes, along with the 808 and 909.

The Wardrobe Synth

The wardrobe synth is another thing I bought off eBay; it’s like the Analogue Systems modular synth but it’s Moog format, that is, it uses bigger patch-leads and the modules are about twice as big. This one is a mixture of lots of random circuits off the internet, hand built by a guy in Scotland. I can see why he sold it, it’s really big; the size of a tall wardrobe, hence its name. Plus, although he had done a great job of building it, it worked in a very odd way, even the duplicate modules worked differently. It’s very hard to get it to do what you want, but for some reason the stuff that it does always seems to be better than what you had in mind anyway.

I’ve been fixing it for slightly over a year now and it’s still not “fixed,” but it’s the main synth we used for the Delicacies record and I’ve learnt so much about synthesis on it. And electronics, I have learnt about that too. I have a feeling that it’s never really going to be fixed, modular synths have a way of expanding and changing and, like a really old house, you just have to accept that they are always going to be a work in progress. Yes, that’s a pain, but it’s worth it to have such a unique instrument. Most of the circuits are not commercially available and it never makes the same noise twice. If I could only keep one synth it would be that one.

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