When they first burst onto the Australian dance music scene in 2005 with their debut album Beams, The Presets were a force to be reckoned with.
There’d really been nothing quite like them, and the Sydney-based electronic duo – Kim Moyes and Julian Hamilton – were just getting warmed up.
Their sophomore album Apocalypso was a bloody juggernaut. Released in 2008, it yielded five singles that have become part of the nation’s social fabric; one of which, the blistering critique of detention centres ‘My People’, remained in the ARIA charts for over 75 weeks!
A massive international tour ensued, and The Presets somehow managed to become one of those knife-sharp independent bands that suddenly was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
After a much-deserved four-year hiatus, the pair are back with their third and arguably most complex record, the beguiling and adventurous Pacifica.
With its multi-layered assault of crunchy drumbeats and hard, focused trance-like melodies, The Presets have released their most personal – and most Australian – record to date.
According to Moyes, speaking from his home in Sydney, Pacifica began its long road to fruition in late 2009, after he and Hamilton had their respective holidays and relaxed a bit.“We’ve played some of these earlier songs to death, and I guess we’re trying to find a way to make them exciting for us to play.”
“We got back into the studio, and just started experimenting and trying to find new sounds – just putting our feelers out to search for the foundations of this record.”
Over the next couple of years, the duo did a lot of experimenting and songwriting, and then at the end of 2011, it was time to pick out some promising tracks.
“[There were] maybe around 20 songs that we had amassed over that period of time and we put them in the short-list and said, ‘Let’s finish these and pull a record from it’!” Moyes laughs. “It was simple and basic as that!”
If anything can be said about a Presets show it is this: They’re electrifying on stage.
Bombastic, edgy, and thoroughly insane, Moyes and Hamilton are the sorts who enjoy springing surprises on their audiences. Punters who witnessed them headlining the Parklife Festival in 2012 were witness to the first performances of the new material, and some fascinating re-tooling of old classics.
When asked about the reception they’ve received, Moyes sounds pretty ecstatic. It’s all about the magic of the moment, he believes – as well as keeping things exciting for the audiences and the band as well.
“You know,” he begins, “we’ve played some of these earlier songs to death, and I guess we’re trying to find a way to make them exciting for us to play; to make them entertaining and refreshing for the audience! And also to create a few surprises, like we start a song with an unfamiliar intro, and when the vocal comes in… everyone gets it!
“So it’s creating a magical moment by doing that,” he continues. “We’re just trying to give everything a fair chance – the new songs and the old ones – to create an experience.”
“We work a little harder, I guess!” he declares, with a friendly chuckle.“There’s always been good clubs and club music from Australia…”
It’s that bridging of the divide between Apocalypso and Pacifica, Moyes reckons, that will give the audience an idea of where The Presets are coming from.
The instrumentalist is honest when it comes to the issue of how daunting it was to follow up Apocalypso. “Of course it was,” he admits.
Apocalypso was “a pretty successful record, but it’s no Justin Bieber!” Moyes giggles. “It wasn’t like we were trying to follow up on 40 million in sales; we were following up on a moderately successful record which meant a lot to a lot of people and us, and was a big deal here in Australia.”
“But the daunting thing for us was just trying to find something that was probably… honest!” he exclaims. “And unique! And not just smashing out another Apocalypso Number Two or just doing a generic club kind of album.”
Moyes pauses for a moment, a philosophical tone in his voice. “We were just trying to stay true to whatever The Presets’ ideals are. The things that we’ve always done and [trying] to find new and refreshing ways of putting styles and genres together… juxtaposing interesting ideas and having something to say that’s a little deeper than ‘everyone party and get drunk,’ you know?”
It’s mentioned to Moyes that, out of all their releases, Pacifica seems to be the most ‘Australian’; a sentiment that he agrees with, absolutely. He and Hamilton were really conscious of embracing their home on this record, he admits.
When they first began, back in 2003, the music that they wanted to make was from what they were inspired by, taking cues from more European and English artists; like The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, and Kraftwerk.
“There’s always been good clubs and club music from Australia, pioneers like Severed Heads and stuff, but our heroes were more international,” he defines.
“We started to make this music that was a bit reflective of our understanding of Australian history and where we’re from.”“You know, we were real big fans of Nick Cave and The Church and a lot of really great rock, but I don’t think we ever really felt like we had a lot of comrades in the history of [Australian] music.”
But something happened along the way during the making of their highly-anticipated third release.
Hamilton and Moyes began to see their name in best-of Australian lists, seeing their name and their album alongside Midnight Oil and Paul Kelly and whatnot – and it dawned on them that they were a part of the Australian fabric.
“It might sound stupid,” Moyes says, “but for me it was a bit of an awakening!”
“[So] we started to make this music that was a bit reflective of our understanding of Australian history and where we’re from – things like ‘Ghosts’ for instance, where it was kind of a play on the sea shanty, which is kind of like First Fleet.”
“There’s ‘Adults Only’ which is an homage to Sydney, and very much started with this idea of colonial techno, you know?” Moyes laughs loudly at this. “Like convicts and indigenous culture, and really trying to conjure up a very unique Australian image.”
Moyes continues, with a rather proud tone in his voice: “We were consciously trying to go, ‘Let’s do what we do, but not be afraid to talk about where we’re from’!”
Pacifica is out now through Modular Recordings, read the Tone Deaf review. The album is also up for the 8th Australian Music Prize, while The Presets are currently touring the nation, dates below.
MONDAY FEBRUARY 11TH – ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY
TICKETEK www.ticketek.com.au Ph: 132 849
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 12TH – ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY
TICKETEK www.ticketek.com.au Ph: 132 849
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 16TH – THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE
TICKETEK www.ticketek.com.au Ph: 132 849
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 19th – THE VENUE, TOWNSVILLE
TICKETEK www.ticketek.com.au Ph: 132 849
