Chop to the top

>>Aussie synth-pop sensation Cut Copy
gets due play at home and abroad

NICE SLICES: Cut Copy

by JACK OATMON

“It’s funny—we started noticing it about a year ago. We hadn’t played a lot of shows back home because we were touring and doing other things.”

Melbourne, Australia’s Dan Whitford has the collected but detectably enthused tone of someone unexpectedly getting dues long forthcoming. “When we came back, our crowds had increased four times from what they were. The kind of people who started coming to our shows were these blond-haired jock guys who wanted to high-five you. Like, ‘You’re the dude who would have been trying to beat me up in high school.’ Not that we can complain.”

Starting seven years ago with I Thought of Numbers, an astonishingly forward-thinking seven-song EP of quirky electrofunk and leftfield house, Cut Copy mastermind Whitford has built a behemoth Down Under whose waves are about to break into a tsunami. With the creation of a full band and the release of underground classic Bright Like Neon Love in 2004, Cut Copy’s dreamlike distillation of tasteful pop, ambient interludes and melodramatic new wave seized the ears of many. But it was not until the recent release of In Ghost Colours, co-produced by NYC neo-disco stalwart Tim Goldsworthy of DFA, that the mainstream caught up with Whitford’s groove. The album charted #1 in Australia upon release last month and has been unavoidable in the club, even here in Montreal, ever since the band decided to upload the entire album to their MySpace.

“Before that happened, I guess we’d seen ourselves a little differently. Maybe it was a bit of a reality check. It crossed over to a point where there’s a really huge following for that kind of music in Australia.”

Whitford credits Australia’s strong culture of live band performance for the popularity of Cut Copy’s rock-inflected dance music. The band’s live show has subsequently informed the style of the new album. “The first album was something we worked on at home as a studio project. There was no thought to what it would sound like live. We’d only really performed together a handful of times. Then we played a whole lot of shows in the years between the records, so I think this time it really ended up making the record sound a lot more like we do live, the way we recorded the live drums and guitars and vocals.”

As for his hometown’s impressive music legacy, Whitford says it’s a matter of tradition. “It’s a bit of a chain reaction, I think. Melbourne’s really the art capital of Australia. It’s got more venues and more opportunities for bands to play and the acts to do their thing.”

For Whitford, the Melbourne live dance music scene harkens back to a single band. “I think, for us, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened without the Avalanches. They really stood out and they weren’t like anything else. That’s what got me thinking about the possibilities of creating live dance music stuff. Eventually a scene develops, and it’s kind of a domino effect. One person comes up with an idea, and it spreads.”

With Mobius Band and
Jay Watts III at Cabaret Musée
Juste Pour Rire on Saturday,
May 10, 9 p.m., $20; DJ set with
D.I.M., Matt Walsh and Thomas
Von Party at Studio Juste Pour
Rire on May 10, 10 p.m., $20