Tiring of the studio routine, Simian Mobile Disco decided to shake things up – so they packed up their gear and headed out to the desert.
Taking just two modular synths, two sequencers, and a mixer, Jas Shaw and James Ford spent three days jamming, pushing their music in new directions.
Culminating with a special show in front of 900 people at Pappy & Harriet’s, Pioneertown, these sessions form the basis of the group's new album 'Whorl'.
Set to be released through Anti- on September 9th, 'Whorl' is rooted in live performance. Jas Shaw explains: "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. " Future live performances of Whorl are currently being planned, with a full list of tour dates to come – each show will be a live recreation of that recording process, so each time 'Whorl' will be slightly different."
Check out a preview of 'Whorl' below.
Simian Mobile Disco are set to release 'Whorl' on September 9th.
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