Tour de Mars

Tour de Mars by The Simonsound has been doing my head in for a few weeks now. I copped this single recently, a mad funky synth freakout that hooks into Tour De France by Kraftwerk and boxes it round the ears soundly. Turns out one of the cats behind the Simonsound is DJ Format, a well-funky geezer. They also name drop the coolest Moog cover version ever, Dick Hyman’s take on James Brown’s “Give it up or Turn it Loose”. That makes them well cool in my books.

Listen to their music here. Tour de Mars is there too, or watch the funky space vid below. Their album is set to drop May 24.



"The Simonsound’s first album, “Reverse Engineering”, offers an intriguing variety of sounds, including ’50s and ’60s-inspired space music, mood music for film and TV, haunting vocal tracks, and switched-on cover versions of classics realised on the Moog synthesiser.

The Simonsound is a sonic partnership consisting of Simon James and Matt Ford. Having previously worked together on Matt’s DJ Format albums and with infinitely broader musical tastes than just hip hop and funk, they began working on The Simonsound as an outlet for their more experimental offerings. This is far from another DJ Format project.

Matt and Simon both cite Dick Hyman’s crazy Moog take on James Brown’s “Give it up or Turn it Loose” as a big inspiration, representing the perfect meeting of experimental electronics and solid rhythm section. They created their own homage to it with a take on the classic b-boy anthem, “It’s Just Begun” by The Jimmy Castor Bunch, replacing the original’s soulful vocals, gritty rhythm and horn sections with heavy Moog synthesiser and electronic sounds that place you firmly in outer space."

Album out May 24 on First Word Records. The Tour de Mars/Bakers dozen single is out now. You can buy it from Soundcloud for a few measly bucks.

First Word Records is also home to the Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra, a bunch of cats from Leeds who have just dropped their debut single, a mean version of Jimi's Crosstown Traffic done afrobeat style. It's wicked.

BONUS Just found this  - Tour de Mars (DJ Food video re-edit)