Simian Mobile Disco

Put your shirt back on and spit out that ridiculous neon whistle – it’s guitars’n’stubble, not decks’n’drugs that’s all the rage these days. Wasn’t dance music (as in the real stuff, not this new rave malarkey) supposed to have died when Norman Cook got too porky for Hawaiian shirts?

Well, no-one told Simian Mobile Disco. After sales figures matching those of Jade Goody dolls in Delhi, Simian (as they were known) jacked in the corduroy a few years back to have a riot creating and remixing the kind of pulse-pumping house music that causes nosebleeds at 100 yards – and in the case of James ‘The Hair’ Ford to produce the likes of Klaxons’ first album and Arctic Monkeys second one. Needless to say, it was the right move – SMD’s ‘We Are Your Friends’ was the dancefloor crossover hit of last year, and their debut full-length will have the haemoglobin flowing come June. Until then, there’s this Bugged Out! compilation, which sees them joining the likes of Felix Da Housecat, Miss Kittin and Erol Alkan – previous stars of the series.

The music is brain-crumplingly kinetic – an hour of the guys spinning the likes of Klaxons, LFO and Joakim to cochlea-pulping effect. But what really stamps SMD’s footprint on the dancefloors of the nation is the fact that the finest cut on the mix is their own brilliantly 2 Unlimited-flavoured ‘It’s The Beat’. And the best bit about it all? There’s not a Hawaiian shirt in sight.

Jamie Fullerton