The last album James Ford and Jas Shaw released as Simian Mobile Disco was a live album last year. Today, they've announced a follow-up LP with a similar live feel.
Called Whorl, the album was partially recorded live at the 900-capacity venue Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown, CA, with other audio culled from in-studio rehearsals. Rather than just hitting play on a pre-sequenced live set, however, the duo made the album with one rack of synth gear and one sequencer each.
In a press release, Shaw digs into the concept a little more:
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.
Whorl will be available on September 9 via Anti-. The album's tracklisting is available below.
Whorl:
1. Redshift
2. Dandelion Spheres
3. Sun Dogs
4. Hypnick Jerk
5. Dervish
6. Z Sphere
7. Nazard
8. Calyz
9. Jam Side Up
10. Tangents
11. Iron Henge
12. Casiopeia
Called Whorl, the album was partially recorded live at the 900-capacity venue Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown, CA, with other audio culled from in-studio rehearsals. Rather than just hitting play on a pre-sequenced live set, however, the duo made the album with one rack of synth gear and one sequencer each.
In a press release, Shaw digs into the concept a little more:
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.
Whorl will be available on September 9 via Anti-. The album's tracklisting is available below.
Whorl:
1. Redshift
2. Dandelion Spheres
3. Sun Dogs
4. Hypnick Jerk
5. Dervish
6. Z Sphere
7. Nazard
8. Calyz
9. Jam Side Up
10. Tangents
11. Iron Henge
12. Casiopeia
