The Presets

(the first track reminds me of "Billie Jean"!)

http://www.modularpeople.com/03/preset/preset.htm has videos, sound, plus the guys doing a track-by-track runthrough of the album (which jars a bit w/my actual experience of the album, heh...)

& for contrast, the Midnight Juggernauts - "Raised By Wolves"

(btw, if anyone could tell me what to expect from "Unc0ntrollable Urg3, Ja1me D00m from B4ng G4ng in Sydney and the Modul4r DJ's", that'd be fab. forewarned is forearmed, &c.)

(& this is probably more of an indictment of auckland that teh genius of the modular guy who DJed, but when, post-presets, he played "crescendolls" => "paris hilton" => "flat beat" => (something) "hey you (what's that sound)" => "saturdays", I almost cried tears of joy on the dancefloor (haha & the usual suspects were like "where's the schmindie? I don't know if I can dance to this music with 'beats'!"))

yes!!

that gold-leaf effect on the cover's a bit much though!

they seem to have a fair few remixes knocking around of late too. the cut copy 'girl and the sea' is much better than the original (which I liked fine enough). not as pretty but great bassline.

i think the presets best tune is i go hard, i go home. i hope they release that on 12" soon with remixes too.

need to hear the midnight juggernauts rmx, stat.

Also, Midnight Juggernauts badly need to release an album if "Raised by Wolves" is any indication. AYEEOOOWWW etc.

+
yes I do the handclaps to 'are you the one'! there is a 'club edit' on the 12" which alas I still haven't heard due to my turntable being outta commission (along with simian mob disco and van she (roffle) mixes).

-- lil' merzbow wow (birthday.part...), May 29th, 2006

wait, "are you the one?" 12"? if so, what/where/when/&c? would be nice to spin the original or a bonus beats/extended mix . . .

new thing to have nightmares about: indie kids with glowsticks.

What have Pitchfork got to do with this?

The DJs were fucking great but the support act was horrible.

they have done the right thing - 12" is out with club edit of the original + hell and juan maclean remixes!

they were great at Daft Punk & the new single My People is a rockin' good time. not clever or original in any way but it pushes my buttons.

also i like the fact that one dude looks like marc almond in the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ufW2INWmM

idleidle upthread is australian dance heavyweight and chart superstar muscl3s, fact fans

haha really. he was not great at daft punk.

this album is way better than the Cut Copy one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Together" sounds like Dead or Alive!!!

i was surprised to learn that presets are quite a bit more popular than CC here too.. keen to see if modular hit the debut-at-#1 trifecta with the van she album too (unlikely but anything's possible)

can't wait til this is up on emusic

no free t-shirt from emusic!

(unlikely but anything's possible)

lucky to debut at #68 morelike

rly? is not so good?

well, Cutters and Presets are bands that have played good slots on a dozen festivals across summer*, were the main supports on the Nevereverland tour**, are building on the success of well-received first albums and years of gigging, have had filmed shows repeatedly televised, have done lots of OS touring, and had huuge amounts of marketing spend... Van She, what, do a lot of support slots and free O Week shows? Their biggest hit is an uncredited remix of a Utah Saints song that doesn't even acknowledge the actual year they did it and hasn't cracked the Top 50? Nothing against them or anything, haven't heard the record -- but they're not even smelling the same league as the other two.

on the chart where Apocalypso debuts #1 - Presets sold out Enmore Theatre in two hours and added a second show that hasn't sold out. Pnau sold out Enmore in about two months, but much of the balcony held for comps - in the wake of that tour and a bonus-disc deluxe reissue of the album, they got up to #31 from #48 -- highest position to date on the fourth chart entry ever, for an album that came out five months ago. and Van She played first support on that show.

* Presets wrapped both Laneway and V - that's closing after both Smashing Pumpkins and Duran Duran at V
** yeah VS played this too, but at 3pm when the headline band isn't on until 10 - on a tour that happens to be put on by their label...

truth bombs

i was surprised to learn that presets are quite a bit more popular than CC here too..

also Presets deal a lot in distorted treble wot the fluorolectro kiddies have been reared on, not deliberately '80s throwback lushness

Presets wrapped both Laneway and V - that's closing after both Smashing Pumpkins and Duran Duran at V

Well, that's not actually true. There were bands playing simultaneously on two other stages at Laneway and a DJ on another when The Presets were playing and all acts finished at the same time. Personally, Bridezilla wrapped my Laneway.

As for V, in Melbourne at least, The Smashing Pumpkins' set was from 8.15pm - 9.45pm on one of the main stages and The Presets from 8.45pm - 9.45pm in a shed. Sorry.

mentally append an "in Sydney" to my comments then!

(i didn't know there was a new cut/copy!)

anyway. what's with the Tony Hadley vocal impressions on this album?

early faves so far: my people, this boy's in love, talk like that.

the epic intro pipe organ intro to 'talk like that' sort of undercuts the rest of it tho. there's a lot of things like that on here - really good bits of overall ok track

mentally append an "in Sydney" to my comments then!

Yeah, I don't think that's increased the accuracy of your statement!

also Presets deal a lot in distorted treble wot the fluorolectro kiddies have been reared on, not deliberately '80s throwback lushness

hmmmn, this is what I thought would work in CC's favour - 80s throwback lushness = crossover audience? while I wasn't too sure of the, uh, depth of the indieclash crowd. proven wrong, if the figures in the cut copy thread re: presets debut sales figures are true.

need to listen to give this a proper listen.

increased the accuracy

The one time I went to Laneway in Sydney the "laneway" stage finished half an hour after the others, so yeah, that's straight assumption. They were def scheduled to finish after Pumpkins at V tho!

And even if two other bands finished at exactly the same time, they're still playing last on the biggest stage for fuck's sake. Pretty sure they were the last act on the dance stage at Homebake too (and therefore loudest on site!).

(i didn't know there was a new cut/copy!)

cut copy

also Presets deal a lot in distorted treble wot the fluorolectro kiddies have been reared on, not deliberately '80s throwback lushness

I hear plenty of the '80s throwback lushness in there too though! More in the SAW sense than Human League/New Order.

I know that Corgan complained every night during V fest that the Presets were too loud. Awesome.

lol nevermind on second listen this is way less SAW and more VNV Nation than I thought

still good though

'my people' is a strangely aggressive song. not a bad live act, but when i saw them support daft punk i was sort of dozing in the grandstands waiting for the main event

Been listening to bits & pieces of this - "A New Sky"'s vocoder bits are great, "This Boy's In Love"'s falsetto chorus works really well, & "My People" is pleasingly jock jams-ish. Doesn't seem to a "Girl & the Sea" song-for-the-laydeez on this ("If I Know You", sort've...) ... I'm guessing the album sounds a lot more focused & punchier than In Ghost Colours. I'm really pleased about how much like a coked-up "Halo"/"Heart Of The Party"-style Severed Heads some of it sounds like!

i'll like this, won't i?

i think so.

Probably!

I'm ... I like it, but it does seem like Modular's got nowhere to go after this. Fave ended up being "Yippiyo-ay" - the corroded Rex The Dog synths, the snappiness of lines like "that chick don't reply to email")(!!)

Six weeks in, still at #4 in the Aussie album charts! "My People" at #25. Tho, Australia, WTF are you doing buying enough Shihad albums to get it to debut at #11? This is making me scared for the next Evermore release!

haha, do you know how many kiwi's live over there now?

I am still completely infatuated with "This Boy's In Love." Best thing they've ever done by miles.

They've been on every festival bill in Australia for the last two years. I've seen them live at lest 7 or 8 times. I'm completely burnt out. This Boy's In Love is nice though.

That video where they multiply terrified the shit out of me almost as much as The Mars Volta one for The Widow so I like The Presets, I like them a lot. Their whole 'death disco' sound is good.

Only saw the film clip for "This Boy's In Love" for the first time today, though I hear it on the radio everywhere (radio DJ schtick: "Surely it's Daniel Johns singing the chorus, yeah?") and... my god, it's totally their "Domino Dancing", isn't it? Homoeroticism par excellence!

Fauxsohomo

if i know you ftw

Fauxsohomo

not one of Argento's better movies i thought

I'd say the reason The Presets outsell Cut Copy (tho let's not forget both debuted at number 1 - both an achievement and something that sends a very clear message about Oz listening tastes at the mo) is just catchiness. Cut Copy's choruses are a bit erm minimalist and laconic - like, "Hearts On Fire" has that amazing "3am Eternal" meets "Fine Time" bridge and then goes into such a downer of a chorus! - whereas The Presets know that they need verses that sound like choruses and choruses that sound like stadium chants.

Basically Cut Copy are increasingly squarely schmindie, whereas I think The Presets appeal both to electro-house heads and the kind of people who were into Silverchair/Spiderbait/Regurgitator ten years ago.

keep forgetting to check this but i reckon i'll prefer it to cut copy's for reason tim offers (altho i never listened to silverchair etc.)

neither has anything as good as 'charlotte' tho right?

i can never work out which vocalist cutcopy/presets sound more like alpinestars

I love the way how when they play live the guy uses the same keyboard preset on all the songs.

keen to see if modular hit the debut-at-#1 trifecta with the van she album too (unlikely but anything's possible)

not #1 but colour me surprised

(expect a drop next week though)

huh, #10. presets still up there at #14, jaysus.
have the potbelleez or any of their ilk released an album yet? ladyhawke have much profile in aussie yet?

wow fuck. that's quite impressive. maybe less so if british india can get to #5 tho

blown away by the staying power of the presets album though

(lol @ vampire weekend at #48)

is 'if i know you' a download only thing or is it the third single proper?

I can't decide which is worse: the boy one where someone sticks their index finger inside their mouth and pokes their cheek in and out, or the girl one where they splay their fingers in front of their face and make slurping noises. I think they are as not funny as each other.

-- estela (estelaisale...), November 20th, 2005.

http://www.thevine.com.au/resources/IMGDETAIL/160808023038_vansheLP.jpg

they're all class

still better than cut copy

they're about lineball. different moods!

I'm a slow dumbarse, these guys fuckin rock. You could play "this boy's in love" in a goth club and no one'd blink. Hahah maybe thats a bad thing, I dont know, but yeah I like this album. Lots of 80s influence variety.

I still prefer Midnight Juggernauts over these guys, but then I love the Electric Light Orchestra too...

I'm well pleased the Aus electronic scene has developed some decent stuff in the last few years, its about bloody time. Not since Sev Heads have we had something worth getting into, what withthese guys, Cut Copy, Juggernauts, Van She etc.

If I know you is top five awesome. Rest of album is sucky electrodribble.

100% agree with the former, the latter not necessarily quite so much

There's that one song that gave me a fright because of where that girl's voice is in the mix that makes you think someone has just crept up on you.

Just such a loser for those hypercamp Moyet vocals.

i played an austrailian wedding the other day and the (totally fun for once, but still) wedding crew were like "oh, you have the presets?!?!? play that one!" which made me think that these guys must be massively popular in austrailia. cause weddings are like my musical barometer of total middle-of-the-roadnesss. so these guys are basically pop stars in sydney?

this kinda stuff is always huge in Australia though, right? List me some more Reaganomic synth-fop with bloated, swishtastic vocals plz. The more airbrushed and flamboyant the better!

pacifica is out. not heard yet but reviews are effusive so far.

listening to this on Spotify right now; I'm 45 seconds in and this is basically exactly my type of shit, hitting a bunch of Apoptgyma Berzerk buttons

basically the rest of the album could be terrible and I would still call it a win for "Youth In Trouble"

"Ghosts" is kind of sea shanty...? This is fucking great

pacifica is out. not heard yet but reviews are effusive so far.

― * The "no hands" rule can be compared to socialist tax policies (Autumn Almanac)

I'm so far behind what's been happening in Aussie music after being in Europe for a year; NZ is confusing enough. Are they likely to chart as well as they did last time around, or is their less Daniel Johns-affiliated stuff boosting it?

...boosting what?

only #3 :(

That was a slightly mangled sentence, sorry. From what I remember, didn't their last album's crossover nature happen due to Daniel Johns being involved / one of the Presets writing a big song for Silverchair and touring w/him, or something? I wasn't sure if they'd still have the same profile without the association w/Johns.

"Ghosts" is one of my favorite things I've heard this year, which is kind of weird

My reaction to this album is every time they veer away from more straightforward synth pop, they hit my buttons and I love it. The more conventional songs fall flat in comparison; I don't dislike them but they don't stand out to me.

"Ghosts" is amazing. I've only had time to listen to the album once, but it seems great.

didn't their last album's crossover nature happen due to Daniel Johns being involved / one of the Presets writing a big song for Silverchair and touring w/him, or something?

nah, 'apocalypso' was one of the biggest australian albums of recent years on its own terms, 'my people' was just the perfect abrasive anthem for that point in 2008 when the one love club and the melbourne DIY electrohouse cottage industry was at its peak commercially.

did johns end up being the singer of the chorus for 'this boy's in love'? he did cameo (and was credited) on earlier stuff.

might have to pick up the new one on thursday.

yeah Apocalypso blew up v organically on its own and devoid of Johns associations

(Johns played guitar on some of their first EP and both Presets were in the live band of The Dissociatives and Hamilton wrote Straight Lines, but that probably paid for part of his house more than it actually brought any crossover fans whatsoever. MMM's not putting them on the A playlist, you know?)

Yeah The Presets were basically inescapable on mainstream radio in 2008/2009.

and Hamilton wrote Straight Lines

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

whilst this album has nothing at the "if i know you" level of amazingness it is probably their best record otherwise.

fave bits so far:

- the forward-reverse-forward-reverse-forward-reverse sequence of the chorus of 'promises'

- the fact that 'a.o.' paints sydney more accurately than anything else I've ever read or heard

- the whole sentiment of 'fall'

Seing them live tonight!

http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/
http://nofun.thepresets.com/

(needs chrome)

i actually really like this lot.

the mix of hard beats with nitzer ebb styled with shouty vocals, and lush electronica pop hits a lot of my sweet spots.

t/s :- aus electro : midnight juggernauts vs cut copy vs van she vs the presets

i would guess a max of 3 votes should such a poll ever be put in place.

Cut Copy > The Presets > Midnight Juggernauts > Van She

Cut Copy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Midnight Juggernauts > The Presets >>>>>>>> Van She

haha.

expected such responses.

and i almost go with boxedjoys rundown but with less of the '>>' between cut copy and midnight juggernauts as i happen to think the first 2 MJ albums are perfect examples of how to update ELO with modern technology toys.

That new Nicky Van She thing is horrifying, a dead-eyed evocation to fun and release that just comes off as empty, desperate - a zombie chant of ill-convincing "life". ..."Liiiiiiife..."

I loved the first Midnight Juggernaut's album but I went to see them live soon after and it was very much Big Rock Music and it put me off them to the point where I only managed a cursory listen to the follow up and neglected the third. Their frontman released a good EP under the name Turkish Prison earlier this year though which I really liked.

not heard any of the solo projects as mentioned.

when a band starts to break into disparate solo projects then the end is well and truly nigh.

(the 2nd MJ album is full on ELO meets new toys .. never heard the 3rd ... )

KIM's solo career has always been a v functional side product to The Presets.

and Van She only ever had one good song and were tedious as heck live anyway, but Nick's Daft Punk cover, back when VS were a thing, was both excellent and a harbinger of nothing.

Van She put out a couple of decent enough pop singles 2 years ago. I haven't kept up with midnight juggernauts since, like, "road to recovery"

Still like most of the biggest Presets hits but find the dude's voice fairly grating. Cut Copy are one of my favourite local groups ever.

Also, lol at Muscles posting upthread! Whatever happened to that guy.

did not deal well with his elevation from message-board troll to pop star, melted down at his label, made up, faded away

blimey, seems to be a lot of detail that i am clearly not aware of this side of the planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roGmGWOOcTA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpZAtLJftQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P6pJRBYxFI

absolute fucking bangers

these new ones are really brash and ugly and dumb, I love this

whoa, I like Downtown Shutdown better than anything they've done since Pretty Little Eyes

we'll be hearing it in shoe shops for decades to come

these new ones are really brash and ugly and dumb, I love this

― boxedjoy, Friday, 11 May 2018 23:06 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and the album's called hi-viz! it seems they're going hard at the mainstream, which is just fine if the rest of the album is anything like these