Cut Copy Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
In Ghost Colours announces itself, calmly but majestically, with a wash of hazy voices and fluttering keyboards giving way to crystal-clear acoustic strums, languid indie pop vocals, a sturdy dance-rock groove, pulsating electro-disco synths, swirling Caribou-style psychedelics, and an ethereal, vocoded chorus melody. Squeezing all of that into one song -- the effervescent "Feel the Love" -- is an ambitious move: in most hands it would come out sounding like a bewildering mess, or at least a hammy, hyperactive pastiche, but Cut Copy manage to keep it light, breezy, and utterly ebullient. Even more impressive is that they're able to replicate the trick repeatedly across this remarkably assured sophomore album. Colours boasts at least a half-dozen potential summer anthems for dancefloors and headphones alike, seamlessly strung together with subdued interstitial mood pieces that help make it more of a nuanced work than a straightforward collection of relentlessly upbeat dance jams. Undeniably, though, the dance jams are at the throbbing heart of the album, from the unstoppably glittery opening trio (leading up to the anthemic slow-burn disco of single "Lights and Music") to the rough-edged rock drive of "So Haunted" to the pure synth pop bliss of "Far Away." Indeed, this is in many ways a perfect summation of the dynamic, multifaceted, hipster-associated independent dance music of the 2000s, a motley interweaving of pop, rock, and electronic dance elements into a kaleidoscopic array of interconnected styles, some strands of which have been summarily, imprecisely tagged ("disco-punk," "electro-house," "new rave,") but which as a whole remain resolutely, gloriously nebulous and undefined. (Though nevertheless undeniably prevalent, and never more so than in 2008, following triumphant runs by LCD Soundsystem, Justice, and Simian Mobile Disco; the months just preceding In Ghost Colours' release saw eminently enjoyable new albums by Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair, Neon Neon, and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, to name a few.) Cut Copy's music bears all the prominent hallmarks of its era: giddily omnivorous stylistic appropriation, a sensuous, sybaritic (though not, in their case, seedy) demeanor, and the distinct evocation of bygone decades, most palpably the ubiquitous post-punk/post-disco '80s, without succumbing to the pitfalls of overzealous eclecticism, empty hedonism, sugary glut, and blatant derivativeness. Or rather, they do show traces of all of these things, but they play each one off as a strength, always in moderation, and never to the detriment of the music. The eclecticism is there but it's fluid and cohesive rather than distractingly showy; their influence-dogging plays like affectionate homage rather than pointless mimicry; there's an abundance of gleaming, even gaudy surfaces, but they're just too rapturously enticing to entertain qualms about superficiality. It surely helps that they have one of the primary architects of this sprawling scene, the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, on board as a producer and mixer. More importantly though, beneath its perfectly formed surfaces this is truly an album of songs -- a surprisingly rare thing in this milieu -- with simple but resonant melodies, carried by Dan Whitford's appealingly casual delivery, which help alleviate a slight tendency toward sonic sameness. This is evident not only on the gentler guitar-based numbers, like the loping "Unforgettable Season" and the oddly country-inflected "Strangers in the Wind," which temporarily scale back the dancefloor euphorics, but the out-and-out burners as well, combining with the peppy basslines and nagging chorus hooks to create something all the more transcendent. To be sure, In Ghost Colours is a triumph of craftsmanship rather than vision -- a synthesis and refinement of existing sounds rather than anything dramatically new and original -- but it is an unalloyed triumph nonetheless, and one of the finest albums of its kind. ~ K. Ross Hoffman, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Live mixes by name DJs have become an increasingly lame cliché, with many of them sounding basically alike: mellow, loungy grooves suitable primarily for drinking mojitos in the bars of trendy boutique hotels. Which is fine, and actually a nice use of what Erik Satie termed music as furniture, but it does mean that once you've heard a couple, you've pretty much heard them all. Fabriclive.29, a live mix by Dan Whitford of the Australian dance trio Cut Copy, is more inventive than most, tempering the usual Euro-disco suspects with unexpected inclusions like Roxy Music's "Angel Eyes," the DFA remix of Goldfrapp's "Slide In," the Faint's new wave revivalist "Your Retro Career Melted," and, most surprisingly, Ciccone Youth's howling 1988 deconstruction of a Madonna hit, "Into the Groovey." The interpolated pop songs not only work well alongside the more standard club tracks (as do the three Cut Copy originals Whitford drops in), they help create a more dynamic and enjoyable listen. Other DJs should listen and learn. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Australian dance-pop group Cut Copy, fronted by multi-instrumentalist/DJ/graphic designer Dan Whitford, ends their stellar debut album with "A Dream," a mellow come down from a record scattershot with retro-dance and rock ideas fitted together with ebullient grooves. Perhaps it would have been better served as an introduction to what is such a free flowing, unrestrained electronic dance record. Bright Like Neon Love -- and by extension Whitford -- is so enamored with simple ideals of dance music, it feels like a dreamy, unconscious state of hypnotic rhythms designed purely for easy listening. Conversely, in no way does this strong rookie effort ever really test the listener -- rarely does Whitford expand beyond the confines of catchy synth loops and simplistic, manipulated vocals -- but as a perfectionist of the pop music craft, any one of these nine main tracks (there are two interludes; and "That Was Just a Dream" and "Zap Zap" are really just one song) could have appeared on a Kylie or Madonna record as sure-fire hit singles. At times the rock star in Whitford seems to supersede the '80s pop fanatic, most notably the infectious synth-meets-guitars riff on "Going Nowhere," the largely instrumental "The Twilight" and the near alternative rock/post-grunge of "Bright Neon Payphone," yet the album's greatest strength is how Whitford remains on an even keel throughout, almost melting down his favorite rock and dance elements to their most simplistic state to make them more palatable. As jarring as switching from synths to guitars can be, Bright Like Neon Love remains consistently a pop record. The lyrics and vocals also play a major factor in making Cut Copy's sound so easy on the ears, as Whitford tends to not sing with much voracity or even mild interest. On "Saturdays," he barely even mutters the rather inane opening lines "When I'm looking for you/I call your number but I can't get through" before the synth-vocoder backing vocals kick in (a common inclusion throughout the album) and the song transforms from a more effervescent version of Stardust's "Music Sounds Better with You" to an uncontained explosion of fuzzy synths, handclaps, and sampled loops. The only other moment on this record that equals the untethered fun of the aforementioned songs' second half is the thumping transition into "Zap Zap," which serves as the album's major landmark. Propelled by rapidly moving phase changes and synth vocals, it's Whitford's only true "DJ" moment on the record -- as he finds the perfect beat and feels content to bask in it for over a couple of minutes. ~ Erik Leijon, All Music Guide
