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!
― etc, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 22:46 (fifteen years ago) link
i'll like this, won't i?
i think so.
― grimly fiendish, Monday, 26 May 2008 21:40 (fifteen years ago) link
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")(!!)
― etc, Monday, 26 May 2008 22:24 (fifteen years ago) link
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!
― etc, Monday, 26 May 2008 22:26 (fifteen years ago) link
haha, do you know how many kiwi's live over there now?
― Bill E, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 01:38 (fifteen years ago) link
I am still completely infatuated with "This Boy's In Love." Best thing they've ever done by miles.
― Telephone thing, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 03:04 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Popture, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 03:09 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― VeronaInTheClub, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 17:13 (fifteen years ago) link
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!
― edwardo, Saturday, 14 June 2008 03:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Fauxsohomo
― Niles Caulder, Saturday, 14 June 2008 03:33 (fifteen years ago) link
if i know you ftw
― electricsound, Saturday, 14 June 2008 04:26 (fifteen years ago) link
not one of Argento's better movies i thought
― Telephone thing, Saturday, 14 June 2008 07:50 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Tim F, Saturday, 14 June 2008 08:00 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― blueski, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 15:38 (fifteen years ago) link
i can never work out which vocalist cutcopy/presets sound more like alpinestars
― Alan, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 16:52 (fifteen years ago) link
I love the way how when they play live the guy uses the same keyboard preset on all the songs.
― James Mitchell, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 20:38 (fifteen years ago) link
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)
― energy flash gordon, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 03:53 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― etc, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:30 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― electricsound, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:41 (fifteen years ago) link
(lol @ vampire weekend at #48)
― electricsound, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:43 (fifteen years ago) link
is 'if i know you' a download only thing or is it the third single proper?
― electricsound, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:45 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― haitch, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:56 (fifteen years ago) link
they're all class
― electricsound, Wednesday, 20 August 2008 04:58 (fifteen years ago) link
still better than cut copy
― Minister for Compression Issues (electricsound), Tuesday, 16 December 2008 23:37 (fifteen years ago) link
they're about lineball. different moods!
― Not in top 100,000 (haitch), Wednesday, 17 December 2008 00:36 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Trayce, Thursday, 22 January 2009 10:33 (fifteen years ago) link
I still prefer Midnight Juggernauts over these guys, but then I love the Electric Light Orchestra too...
― Live from the Witch Trials (SeekAltRoute), Thursday, 22 January 2009 11:38 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Trayce, Thursday, 22 January 2009 22:29 (fifteen years ago) link
If I know you is top five awesome. Rest of album is sucky electrodribble.
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 01:20 (fifteen years ago) link
100% agree with the former, the latter not necessarily quite so much
― w/ sax (electricsound), Friday, 13 March 2009 01:34 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 01:37 (fifteen years ago) link
Just such a loser for those hypercamp Moyet vocals.
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 10:37 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― messiahwannabe, Friday, 13 March 2009 14:05 (fifteen years ago) link
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!
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 15:05 (fifteen years ago) link
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), Monday, 10 September 2012 06:44 (eleven years ago) link
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
― wtf where's my chapbook (DJP), Monday, 17 September 2012 17:21 (eleven years ago) link
basically the rest of the album could be terrible and I would still call it a win for "Youth In Trouble"
― wtf where's my chapbook (DJP), Monday, 17 September 2012 17:26 (eleven years ago) link
"Ghosts" is kind of sea shanty...? This is fucking great
― wtf where's my chapbook (DJP), Monday, 17 September 2012 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
― * 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?
― etc, Tuesday, 18 September 2012 01:32 (eleven years ago) link
...boosting what?
― ┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 01:33 (eleven years ago) link
only #3 :(
― upset and upsetting (electricsound), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 01:36 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― etc, Tuesday, 18 September 2012 13:51 (eleven years ago) link
"Ghosts" is one of my favorite things I've heard this year, which is kind of weird
― wtf where's my chapbook (DJP), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 14:49 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― wtf where's my chapbook (DJP), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 15:02 (eleven years ago) link
"Ghosts" is amazing. I've only had time to listen to the album once, but it seems great.
― LeRooLeRoo, Tuesday, 18 September 2012 15:13 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― the ghost of 29 unicycles (haitch), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
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?)
― ┐(´ー`)┌ (sic), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 18:27 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah The Presets were basically inescapable on mainstream radio in 2008/2009.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 18 September 2012 20:44 (eleven years ago) link
and Hamilton wrote Straight Lines
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
― * The "no hands" rule can be compared to socialist tax policies (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 18 September 2012 20:55 (eleven years ago) link
whilst this album has nothing at the "if i know you" level of amazingness it is probably their best record otherwise.
― bansplain (electricsound), Friday, 19 October 2012 12:08 (eleven years ago) link