Five Tracks: The Presets

The Presets are a duo representing Australia that have been moving from strength to strength over the last decade. They've been named one of Triple J's Hottest 100, performed at Global Gathering, and released loads of bits, primarily via Modular (although Universal and Island have come knocking over the years). For our latest Five Tracks, they dived into an interesting collection of tunes, some old, some new(er), all influential to their work. Here are The Presets' Five Tracks.

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The Presets are a duo representing Australia that have been moving from strength to strength over the last decade. They've been named one of Triple J's Hottest 100, performed at Global Gathering, and released loads of bits, primarily via Modular (although Universal and Island have come knocking over the years). For our latest Five Tracks, they dived into an interesting collection of tunes, some old, some new(er), all influential to their work. Here are The Presets' Five Tracks.

Wackies - "Hot and Cold"

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I am a big fan of dub music. I like how dub artists exploit space to such a huge effect. They strip it all back, leaving only the most important bits - bass, space and reverb, and maybe a keyboard or guitar hitting the twos and fours. That is enough. Whilst we clearly don't make dub music, it's a theory we try to apply to a lot of what we do. We stripped the verses in "Promises" way back to just bass and kick drum. I am convinced this is why we are having such a difficult time getting commercial radio in Australia to be interested in this tune - it's too empty! But that is why we like it.

X-Press 2 - "Kill 100 (Carl Craig Remix)"

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This is such a great remix. I remember buying a mix album with this one it and listening to it whilst jogging around Hyde Park in London many years ago. Kim heard this out one night and I know it inspired him to go into the studio and lay down the bed and beat for Fast Seconds. We are both big fans of Detroit techno.

Womack and Womack - "Teardrops"

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When I first started fleshing out ideas for the song "It's Cool," it sounded a bit like this. I wanted it to be a bit up-tempo, with a pushing bass, and a light yet groovy beat. The song ended up getting finished quite differently, it sounds a lot darker and heavier, which is cool. But it's interesting that sometimes, while a song's beginnings might be heavily inspired by a sound, or a certain song or style, it may well shoot of on a tangent, and end up in a very different place.

Fennesz - "Saffron Revolution"

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Fennesz is definitely a favourite artist of both Kim and myself. The thick textures and layers of beautiful noise he builds are really inspiring. They remind me of some of my favourite composers I learnt about at University (Penderecki, Ligeti) We tried to do the same kind of idea in choruses of our tune "Fail Epic."

Cassius - "I Love U So"

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A friend of mine brought this track over one day and played it to me and it blew me away. Such a simple idea with the chorus basically being the same vocal sample, but just tuned differently, so it sounds kind of like a question and answer, or a big and a girl singing a duet. It inspired the main back-up vocal hook in "Promises," where I sing a line, then layer it up over and over with more vocals - then reverse the whole thing exactly, so it kinda sounds like the vocal plays forward, then reverses.

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