By Tim Weissberg

I remember the first time I heard Simian Mobile Disco play a set. It was in Room 2 of Fabric about two years ago. During that period I was spending at least once a week trawling the electro nights of London clubs and listening, on the whole, to the same tunes being played in various different orders. SMD were different. Yes, they played the up-to-date belters that were packing out most of the more cutting-edge dancefloors at the time but they added something a bit different – the belters that had people flocking to the floor in years gone by. Due to nothing more than the passing of time, I can’t remember a great deal of the actual songs played but the original version of Utah Saint’s Something Good and The Thin White Duke reworking of Felix Da Housecat’s Silver Screen Shower Scene – one of my all time favourite tunes ­­– stuck in my mind.

But enough of then, this is now. And now’s SMD have arrived with the latest, 41^st, mix album in the aforementioned London club’s monthly series called, well, Fabriclive.41: Simian Mobile Disco.

Prior to listening the mix I was quite excited about the prospect of a SMD selection. I was expecting something along the lines of the offerings by the likes of Mr Da Housecat remixing Jacques Lu Cont, Cut Copy, The Glimmers and James Lavelle. What made these mixes stand out was their genre-spanning diversity. Maybe they weren’t an exact reflection of what you’d hear the DJs spinning in a club, but they were perfect selections to listen to at home or a house party. Which is kind of the point of the Fabriclive CDs, isn’t it?

However, upon listening to the album I found that this was not to be the case. There was no real excursions, save for album closer Nite Flight by The Walker Brother, from the blippy electro that SMD have been playing out for a long time now. There are, however, some quality past, present and future classics on there, such as Green Velvet’s Flash, Erotic Discourse by the Paul Woolford presented Bobby Peru, Hercules And Love Affair’s surely-to-be-seminal Blind (Serge Santiago Version) and SMD’s own Simple.

Without wanting it to sound like a criticism, if you are after a mix album that recreates a banging late-night dancefloor that stays just on the right side of repetitive, this is a great album. For those of you hoping for a great party album, akin to the Mobile Disco’s earlier sets, with the odd surprise thrown in, maybe try one of the Fabriclive albums mentioned above.

Tracklisting:

1. Infernal Dance Of King Kastechi (clean version) – Firebird
2. Don – Sisters Of Transistor
3. Simple – Simian Mobile Disco
4. Blind (Serge Santiago version) – Hercules & Love Affair
5. Space Warrior – Smith & Hack
6. Joystick – Discodeine
7. Chasm – Shit Robot
8. Up Tool – Perc & Fractal
9. Miura – Metro Area
10. Crack El – Worthy
11. Suite Equestria – Moon Dog
12. Huncut Hacuka – Fine Cut Bodies
13. Aemono – Bentobox
14. Reward Is Cheese – Deadmau5 & Jelo
15. Sleep Deprivation (Simon Baker remix) – Simian Mobile Disco
16. Chomper – Popof
17. Cindy Electronium – Raymond Scott
18. Erotic Discourse – Paul Woolford & Bobby Peru
19. Pitch Control – Moebius Plank Neumeier
20. Spastik – Plastikman
21. Flash – Green Velvet
22. Night Flights (album version) – The Walker Brothers