Simian Mobile Disco get ready to Whorl

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  • The UK outfit's next LP will be recorded at a saloon bar next to Joshua Tree National Park in California.
  • Simian Mobile Disco get ready to Whorl image
  • Simian Mobile Disco will head to a honky-tonk saloon in California to play a gig that forms the backbone of their next album, Whorl. It won't be a live album in the traditional sense: SMD will take recordings from the show into the studio and shape the album around them. The gig will take place on Saturday, April 26th, at Pappy & Harriets, a saloon located in Pioneertown, next to Joshua Tree National Park. "We want to try blur the boundaries between studio composition and live performance as much as possible," says SMD member Jas Shaw. "Anything we record in the studio will essentially just be another 'take' of a live performance—the system we're using has limited ability to save patterns in the sequencer, but nothing like the flexibility of a computer." He adds: "We're not slavishly limiting ourselves just to this performance—we'll be recording numerous takes beforehand in the studio, and when we come to mix down the album, we might well end up using portions of studio takes as well as those recorded in the desert. At the moment the whole project is pretty fluid and there's no telling where it will be by the time we actually perform." A press release says the show will see the duo using "no computers; no racks of gear; just one synth and one sequencer each, a system they have created." Seattle outfit Earth will support on the night, and entry is US$15. Whorl will be the duo's first album since 2012's Unpatterns. Since then they've kept busy with their culinary-themed Delicacies series, which has seen them collaborate with the likes of Cosmin TRG and, most recently, Roman Flügel.
RA