Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

by Tom Mendelsohn

Spirited

"When something good manages to slip through, it's always such a lovely surprise."

Modern trendies in day-glo apparel doing the 80s are prevalent, at the moment. They are getting irritating, too, as the idea – originally a good one – gets watered down as reams of bozos leap for the bandwagon. It’s the same with everything, and it’s a pain. Except, of course, when something good manages to slip through, which is always such a lovely surprise.

Cut Copy are some of the good guys. Arriving at the vanguard of what seems to have become quite a contingent of competent Australian musicians, they slunk onto the scene with a sleek album of retro-cool dance in 2004. They weren’t revolutionary, and they didn’t make a massive splash, but they caught the right eyes: they’ve toured with Daft Punk, while ‘In Ghost Colours’ has been produced by DFA honcho Tim Goldsworthy. That’s pedigree.

Anyway, album number two does not mark a great departure from the formula. It’s not, predictably, as immediate as the band’s first album, but it is still rich, textured and deep. The record has quite a mournful atmosphere, and for all its surface chirpiness, it definitely isn’t upbeat. It is nevertheless very danceable, with interesting production – in tone, it’s spot on, and it has strong tracks to the end. Singer Dan Whitford also, importantly, has exactly the right melancholic falsetto to make the music work, while whoever wrote the songs evidently has a real grasp of subtlety and depth, which is so often lacking in neo-disco music such as this.

A lot of bands make, or try to make, records like this. Few of them are as effortlessly proficient, however, as Cut Copy manage to be. In endeavours like this, success is in the details and ‘In Ghost Colours’ is awash with, ahem, haunting moments.

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