Simian Mobile Disco: Unpatterns – review

Jas Shaw and James Ford have what might be called "portfolio careers". They produce, they engineer, they DJ and, as Simian Mobile Disco, they record. Their experience has earned them great technical expertise and produced a magpie-like output. Over the course of three albums SMD have shifted tack with each piece; first electro, then electropop and now minimal techno. In this last guise, the duo appear to have found a form that suits them. A lot of time has been spent on this record, and it shows: every tone has the clarity of applied refinement. This lends the album a degree of beauty, one reinforced by the delicacy of the songs' composition. It is also, however, one step removed from club music. The most danceable tracks are the simplest – Interference and Your Love Ain't Fair – but the rest is music in which to lose your thoughts, rather than your T-shirt.