It's only a few hours away, but I'm getting excited for Simian Mobile Disco's show at Neumos tonight. This'll be the third time I've seen the duo of James Ford and Jas Shaw and they've always put on an exciting, multimedia live show that showcases their intricate dance beats (usually working within the 4/4 beat but never making it feel like a constraint). The show will be a sweaty mess and crowded with people searching for every available inch on the floor to dance but I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Monday night.

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This new single by Simian Mobile Disco, "Audacity of Huge", took a while to grow on me, mostly because it's the verses that are catchy, not the chorus. Still, after a few listens, I'm hooked on this song. The chorus is robotic, vocoder-enhanced and just repeats "audacity of huge" over and over again but the verses, sung by Chris Keating of Yeasayer, have a little more emotion, while listing off a bunch of possessing and then asking "I've got it all, so why don't I have you?"

SMD's follow-up to their great debut album, Attack Decay Sustain Release, is called Temporary Pleasure and it'll be coming out August 18.

{Simian Mobile Disco photo by Jeanine Anderson from the TIG Flickr Pool}

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Every so often I'll run into someone who really hates "dance music" and will argue that it's stupid, or anti-intellectual. I saw one person on Twitter refer to Royksopp as a mediocre dance band over the past weekend. Simply put, Simian Mobile Disco are why people who believe that are full of shit.

SMD's album Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release is a like listening to an instructional manual on beatmaking. Working within the confines of the 4/4 beat (as does nearly everyone else), the the album is pretty remarkable in that the beats transition into one another. It's two singles, "The Hustler" and "It's the Beat", are dance floor anthems, with the latter being a perfect case for getting people to D.A.N.C.E.

When I saw them at Neumo's last year, I wrote:

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at Neumo's

The show felt like what I presume a typical (but decadent) weekend night at Studio 54 was like in the 1970s.

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