Singles

Beth Ditto, Simian Mobile Disco - DeConstruction EP

Alisha Ahmed & Federica Frezza 10/02/2011

Rating: 3/5

Everytime we read the usual pun-intended kind of description of Miss Ditto, addressing in some way or another her image rather than her talents, we always feel personally stung by it, as if it wasn't enough for us all to focus on the fact that she has such a unique and powerful voice, which makes her an amazing singer, transgressive image to it or not.
What's astounding is that anything could ever catch eyes, okay in this case it would be better to say "ears", more than her vocal abilities.
So much so that, to us, everything surrenders in front of them, sometimes even background music.
This never actually applied with Gossip, probably because of the intricate structures of drums and bass, but with this side project, which we're now going to refer to as "affair project", as Miss Ditto described it herself, instruments are not a match to her.
She willingly wanted the melodies of the DeConstruction EP to be extremely rough, raw, skinned to the bone. And this left them so exposed to the flood of her voice there's not much left when the waters recede.
Simian Mobile Disco provide a stream of synthetic beats strongly reminiscing of the late '80, and as it often happens with memories, it all seems radiant and cute and happy back there, when women used to dance with amazing outfits caring just that much about being properly graceful, when everyone would shake to a tune without selfconsciusness, when dance floors would be serenely filled with huge belts, huge shoulder pads, loud colours and flashy makeup.
And we wouldn't wait for the deep meaningful lyrics, we wouldn't focus on the fact that, when dissected, a song would sound amazingly SIMPLE, we couldn't care less what Grace Jones looked like, unless we were looking for inspiration.
Have things changed that much?
Have we grown into a generation that when dancing won't have fun as much as we used to have?
Why is it, that when talking about this, all that's left is a comment over how huge it is?
That wasn't the point, really.