The Presets

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!

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