- The fun of a DJ mix series comes from the actual quality of the mixing and track selection, obviously, but also from the visual aesthetics and that Fabric-sponsored “vague belonging” feeling it helps conjure. Bugged Out’s ‘Suck My Deck’ series, for example, was able, with both Ivan Smagghe and Damian Lazarus’s respective mixed albums, to evoke some sort of typically European coolness (at least, from the North American perspective), all but enhanced by the DJ-wearing-his-own-t-shirt self-referential cover art. With the third installment of the series (coming out unexpectedly almost two full years after the last one), Simian Mobile Disco are aiming at everyone who enjoyed their famously distorted and genre-bending sets at Fabric’s ‘Let’s Kill Em All’ monthly nights. Gone are the cool t-shirts, though, now replaced by giant eyes taking a look at current trendy nü-electro-rave artists (Para One, JoJo de Freq, the ubiquitous Klaxons) and no-so-current influences (Liaisons Dangereuses, LFO, The White Noise) in the most effective of fashion.
They have been at it for a while now (if you count their days as bucolic electronic folklorist Simian), and it shows, both in terms of tastes and skills. For example, the way Vincent Markowski’s ‘The Madness of Moths’ morphs into Holden’s ‘Idiot’ before leaving place to SebastiAn’s mammoth ‘Walkman’ is nothing short of impressive. The Alter Ego remix of Partial Art’s ‘Trauermusik’, too, even helps to create invisible links between German hedonism and London’s own histrionic mayhem. Then, at some point early in the mix, SMD chooses to go from Fat Eddie’s seminal hip house track called, errr, ‘Hip House’, to A-J-Scent’ retro-sounding ‘Da Posse’, then to their own current single ‘It’s the Beat’, and you can actually hear their agenda loud and clear: their ‘Suck My Deck’ could be seen less of an artistic statement in itself than an appetizer for their proper artist album, to be released a bit later this summer. Turns out the self-reference is now in the mix itself instead of being simply photographed and added on top of it, which is, I guess, just another way of self-representing, you know.
In the end, it is like SMD somehow wants you to hear where they’re musically coming from and what decks they were always sucking on: therefore, what the mix gains in energy level, it loses somehow in upfront spontaneity, something that could never have been proclaimed about both Smagghe or Lazarus. That said, this shouldn’t be held against what is otherwise a still-relevant DJ mix series (at least for now), and an amusingly self-conscious duo of producers.
Tracklist1 Joakim – Drumtrax
2 Liaisons Dangereuses – Peut être …pas
3 Fast Eddie – Hip House
4 A-J-Scent – Da Posse
5 Simian Mobile Disco – It’s The Beat
6 Vincent Markowski – The Madness Of Moths
7 Holden – Idiot
8 SebastiAn – Walkman
9 Jack Frost and The Circle Jerks – Shout
10 Para One – Midnight Swim (Riton Rerub)
11 Ms. Thing – Love Guide feat. Switch
12 JoJo De Freq – Make Some Noise!
13 Klaxons – Magick (SMD Mix)
14 Partial Arts – Trauermusik
15 Buraka Som Sistema – Yah! Feat. Petty
16 Kerowack – Naf Monk (Jaimie Fanatic’s Kiss Thiss Mix)
17 LFO – Freak
18 The White Noise – Love Without Sound