Simian Mobile Disco

After the all-around letdown of 2009's Temporary Pleasure, in which Simian Mobile Disco allowed Beth Ditto, Jamie Lidell and Alexis Taylor to mess with their character-driven techno sound, the London duo rebounded in 2010 with the back-to-basics Delicacies. For their fourth-LP, Simian Mobile Disco lose some of the tininess and robot leanings of Delicacies while keeping their love of Detroit and Chicago electro loud and proud. For their second straight LP of all-instrumentals, the London duo make better use of their tracks' six- and seven-minute running times, giving numbers like "Seraphim" and "Put Your Hands Together" multiple dimensions via big, beefy, diva-tinged vocal samples. The rest of the LP follows suit with exploratory rhythm shifts ("Cerulean") and aurally pleasing edits ("Pareidolia"). Simian Mobile Disco seem either unsure of which musical direction they'd like to pursue or perhaps are just steely genre adventurists. Either way, Unpatterns straight-up works.