The Presets: Are They The Ones?

What is it with Australia these days? It used to churn out goods bands by the dribble, in the last six months it’s become a flood! It seems that 2006 is the year that Australian music has set its sights on taking over the world and who can blame them when the likes of Wolfmother, Damn Arms, The Morning After Girls, Howling Belles, The Scare, Wolf & Cub and Expatriate are overflowing the aural horizons. Add to that list The Presets. Having conquered their homelands many moons ago, well it was actually last year but who’s counting? - they're about to unleash their amalgamation of sleazily camp electronica and angular indie on the rest of the world in the coming months with debut album 'Beams' arriving in May. They call it “spazzdancefagrock” and we think your gonna love it.

“Its party music” says front man Julian Hamilton. “Its groovy without being groovy and kind of dark aswell. It's all about having a good time without being too serious about everything,” adds drummer and the unfortunately monikered Kimberley Moyes. Now like many a band before them The Presets have built up around the band a myth of how they came into existence - one story (The real one according to the duo) tells the legend of a pasta restaurant, a meeting over anchovies and trying to escape the Child Protection Services. The other, and a wholly more plausible tale, is that the duo met at University over a decade ago and were originally part of Sydney alt. instrumentalists Prop before deciding they wanted to do something a little more “crazier and stupid” and branching off to The Presets three years ago. We’ll let you decide which story you want to believe.

One thing we know for sure is that the pair are on a mission to breath new life into the live performances of dance acts, so what can we expect from a Presets gig? “First of all you’ll see two guys doing something rather than checking their emails,” laughs Hamilton. “Usually our shows are pretty off the hook. It’s just something that’s lacking in dance music. You see rock bands with such personality and everyone’s jumping around going wild. Then you go and see your favourite dance act and its two boring geeks hiding behind their machines,” he laments. “We want the audience to enjoy it but we also want to enjoy it ourselves!” Gigwise later witnesses The Presets experience and they certainly stick to their promises - Hamilton prancing camply around the stage spasmodically and Moyes like an octupus behind the drums - not an inbox in sight.

The angle that sees The Presets coming at dance music with indie sensibilities in mind pits them perfectly into the current crossover environment that seems to have engulfed the music world for the past two years. “We see ourselves on that blurred line, that grey area,” explains Hamilton. “As every year goes by those genres become less and less relevant. These days you go to techno or dance clubs and they’re playing their favourite rock tunes and vice versa.” It’s also seen them being likened to fellow Aussies and Modular stable-mates Cut Copy, a band they have a lot of appreciation for. “They’re great, they’ve still got that party vibe but they’re a lot more polished,” says Moyes. “They’re a bit more romantic and we’re a bit more of a punch in the face. They are the shoe polish and we’re the vomit!”