Simian Mobile Disco
Simian Mobile Disco is the English DJ and production duo of James Ford and Jas Shaw, who met at Manchester University in the late 1990s and formed the project in 2003 out of the remnants of their earlier band Simian. Originally conceived as a DJ duo rather than a production act, Simian Mobile Disco built a reputation for analogue-hardware-based live sets, with Ford and Shaw performing using modular synthesizers and drum machines set up on stage rather than relying purely on laptop mixing.
Their career has taken them from club-oriented house and techno DJ sets to appearances at Berghain and other techno-focused venues, a trajectory that Vice has described as one of contemporary dance music's more unlikely paths to credibility in that scene. Ford has additionally built a parallel career as a producer for artists including Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine, work that runs separately from his and Shaw's DJ and live performance identity as Simian Mobile Disco.
The duo have periodically reinvented their live setup, at one point discarding their entire previous production toolkit to force a new creative approach rather than repeating earlier records on stage. Their sets remain rooted in the DJ-duo format the pair started with, even as their studio releases have moved across house, techno and more experimental electronic territory over two decades of work together.