Pitchfork

If you've been to one of those indie club nights recently, chances are you bumped, grinded, and/or swirled your swizzle stick to the irresistible tune of a Simian Mobile Disco acid house banger. Was it CD-theft anthem "Hustler" (notably mashed-up with Rick Ross by Cadence Weapon last year, and immortalized with triple-hottt girl-on-girl action in Saam Farahmand's lascivious video)? Maybe "I Believe", the monster jam that kicks off the latest Kitsuné Maison compilation? Or the duo's recent sizzler, "Tits & Acid"?

Comprised of two blokes named James (that would be James Ellis Ford and James Anthony Shaw) from defunct Astralwerks also-rans Simian, dancefloor-friendlier Simian Mobile Disco burst onto the scene about a year ago with the aforementioned "Hustler" and a bunch of ace remixes for like-minded Klaxons and the Rapture, as well as Air and the Go! Team. (Interestingly, another house duo on the up'n'up-- France-based Justice-- re-jiggered Simian's "Never Be Alone" into an international club smash a couple years prior, although the tune only really took flight within the last 18 months.)

With Simian Mobile Disco primed to play Pitchfork's SXSW day party and poised to explode as their debut full-length lands next month via Wichita, now's as good a time as any to go apeshit bananas over the ascendant duo. And if you need a few more reasons (and frankly, we're sort of hoping you do), we've got your back:

Stream: > Simian Mobile Disco: "It's the Beat"
[from "It's the Beat" single; due 03/27/07 on Witchita Recordings] | [PRE-ORDER]

"It's the Beat" should prove one of 2007's most primal and infectious dance anthems come year's end.  Opening on a murky, skeletal pulse, a slightly roboticized vocal-- with very human sass-- drops in amid the blips, bloops and scratches with some very Go! Team-derived hip-hop chatter. But when the song hits its stride at the three-minute mark, look the fuck out: A dense, swirling cloud of lush, twinkling synthesizers takes over for an electro-psych breakdown, and the song quickly reassembles itself with an absolutely colossal polyrhythmic drum track. "It's the Beat" finds SMD puréeing the thrust of house with the shriller sounds of rave and the icy precision of techno, and it's one of the most satisfying tracks-- electro or otherwise-- to drop yet this year.

MP3: > Simian Mobile Disco: "Animal House"
[from (White Label); out now] | [ORDER]

Better wear an airy toga for this one. Imagine yourself on a herky-jerky conveyor belt, with those robot arms that build cars instead spinning glowsticks, and you've got the general idea. Halfway through, everything plunges into a vat of molten sequins-- that somehow magically leaves you unscathed!-- and when you finally surface, the message is clear: "We're all holed up/ In an animal house." Then the party really begins.

Stream:> Simian Mobile Disco: "Tits & Acid"
[from (White Label); out now] | [ORDER]

And lastly, here's our old pal "Tits & Acid", a "debaucherous dance ditty" originally posted this past October in News, and still every bit a scorcher.