In a revamped re-launch Bugged Out reprise their rather ace Suck My Deck series with a set from everybody's new favourite electro rave duo, Simian Mobile Disco.
This latest Suck My Deck consists of a considerably more varied take on things than both Ivan Smagghe's or Damian Lazarus' and is more approachable as a result. Things kick off with Joakim's 'Drumtrax', taken from his excellent Monsters & Silly Songs long-player, it's a slow, somewhat restrained start to an album that is anything but elsewhere.
Liasons Dangereuses and Fast Eddie are thrown into the mix to provide prove a bit of retro savvy, contributing spikey post-punk and hip-house respectively, but for the most part this is recent stuff. Simian Mobile Disco's 'It's The Beat' gets things really going - you quite possibly know it but if you don't the album's almost worth buying for this alone, building from a hip-techno start into something much more melodic when the synths kick in - it's cold, melancholic and awesome. It sounds like the surface of another planet and it just might make the hairs on your neck stand up.
The somewhat minimal yet arse-shakingly funky 'The Madness of Moths' by Vincent Markowski builds into Holden's unapologetic 'Idiot', who proves yet again that he'll be damned if he's going to be contrained by anything as conservative as a genre. If you've not heard 'Idiot' it sounds like a Atari 2600 knocking you out cold with a lump of acid before running off with your car, girlfriend and career. It's ALIVE.
In a move that makes it sound like they were born to be together, SMD gentle massage 'Idiot' into Sebastian's 'Walkman', here pitched up considerably to turn it into something even more ferocious. You can tell you've arrived when you get an article in The Guardian's Guide - 2007 is going to be Ed Banger's year so you better get used this this in your face brand of French distorted house. Not that that should represent a problem - it's fucking awesome after all.
More French craziness comes in the form of Riton's mix of Para One's Midnight Swim. With the help of Switch's midas touch Ms. Thing's Love Guide successfully mixes ragga and dance hall with cranium crushing techno. Simian then go on to utterly destroy the Klaxon's Magick, reducing it to its core elements and reverse engineering nu-rave into a series of vocal cuts and stabbing synths. It's big, very loud, very clever and guaranteed to please almost any dancefloor in the country right now.
Moving into Suck My Deck's closing section, Alter Ego make Partial Arts' 'Trauermusik' somewhat less minimal with their fairly typical yet totally enjoyable squeaky acid. Kerowack's 'Naf Monk' sounds like it was literally created to kill anyone that listened to it and from this comes last-track but one, LFO's 'Freak'. Again, you probably know it, if you don't it's a cut-up mess of acid chaos that those around you will try and tell you isn't even music. Ignore them and play this loudly. Things are brought to a close proper with the eerie, Lynchian 'Love Without Sound' by The White Noise.
They also make it sound too easy, but in the form of Suck My Deck Simian Mobile Disco have created what BlackPlastic would argue is currently 2007's best mix album. It cares little for genre and absolutely nothing at all for the state of your ears but it is utterly glorious all the same. Here's hoping there's a shorter wait for the next Suck My Deck album, and that SMD's forthcoming artist album lives up to the building hype.