Strange coves Simian. They've set up their own religion. They call their gigs meetings of The Church Of Simian. They once kidnapped a Source Records talent scout, blindfolded him and drove him around in the back of a blacked out van for ages before taking him to a basement to play him their music. They wear what look like Victorian clothes and their album artwork reveals a fascination for grafting bits of animals onto others - a sheep's head onto a St Bernhard's body on the front cover. Can't be healthy surely.
James Ford, Simon Lord, Jas Shaw and Alex Macnaghten met while at university in Manchester. Like souls, they set about creating their own unique sound - an experimental mix of folk, dub and electronica, part Pink Floyd, part Kraftwerk, with odd noises and Beatles style harmonies, all endowed with an eerie, dreamy soundtrack feel.
It's bewitching stuff. Like 'Drop And Roll', the opener to this their first album proper - there was a mini album 'Watch It Glow' last year - a slow building blend of wheezing squeezebox style rhythms, hypnotic, spiralling harmonies and crackles. Or the burbling, grumbling, robot-with-indigestion synths and trippy feel of 'The Wisp'.
'Doba' sounds half-finished - a percussion and synth powered jam with melodic mumbles. 'How Could I Be Right' is all acoustic guitar and whispered, malicious vocals. 'One Dimension' is the closest thing these chaps come to a pop song, a jaunty, upbeat ditty a little along the lines of a subdued, space-age 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' from 'Abbey Road'. 'Mr Crow' meanwhile is a folksome lo-fi number, not a million miles away from something labelmates Kings Of Convenience or Turin Brakes might come up with.
Then there are the lyrics: "round and around the serpents tail grows/out in the fields turn into gold/nothing gets said and nothing grows old/round and around the serpents tail grows" - from the sinister lullaby feel of 'Round And Around'- or "orange glow it kills your star/you named it after what has died/and now we drive through lanes to give it life/we're going to the hills, so calm, where we can see its eye." - from 'Orange Glow'. Suitably skewed, otherwordly thoughts for skewed, otherworldly music.
An intriguing album, to say the very least.
