A few months ago I got a hold of one of the most promising demos I’ve ever heard, it comes from a duo comprising the fine musical expertise of Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes from Sydney band Prop.

As their industry interest grows steadily, I managed to get the low-down from Kim about already recording with the likes of Daniel Johns and YYY’s Nick Zinner and the difference between the charming, warm sounds of Prop and smooth, sexy, pop of Presets.

Presets emerged somehow, almost by accident during a Prop rehearsal about a year ago. “There was this one stage in rehearsals where we¹d have a break and I’d get on the drums and Julian would just start playing synths and we just wrote a couple of songs one of them was ‘Eviction,’ which we wrote ages ago, it pretty much just came out of us mucking around. Then we tried to finish this one song and I came up with the name Presets. It happened naturally, then we decided to just do it and spent 3 months writing a demo and handed it out to a couple of labels, Modular really liked it and offered us a deal.”

After only a year of writing and experimentation Presets have already enlisted the help of Daniel Johns “A few months ago we went into the studio with Daniel and wrote some stuff with him, which we’re still finishing at the moment. He just plays guitar, he doesn’t sing and it’s not meant to be a big ‘featured’ thing. He liked what we were doing when Julian played him some stuff and said he¹d love to come in and do some stuff with us, so we just went in with this really chugging house track and he just played some guitars on that and some other tracks. It was great working with him, he¹s really talented, he has great ideas and is really positive. We’re also using some guitars we recorded with Nick Zinner while the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were out here last year, that’ll sound pretty crazy.” With Julian back in the country after a refreshing overseas tour with Silverchair (whom he’s been playing keyboards for), the only way is up for Presets, with lots of new material either processing or in the works, it looks promising that we’ll be seeing a release from them in the next few months. “When we start working together again, we’re really just going to hone in and finish it. So, we’ve been writing a lot, we’ve got shitloads of material, but a lot of it is still being worked on, we’ve finished one song for the Prop remix cd, but that’s all so far.”

With Presets making music so different from that of which you would expect from Prop. Their material is beats and synth based tracks that rock laced with Julian’s suave vocals, stylings, you can only begin to imagine the possibilities of what their live shows will entail.

“We’re making a pop record instead of a sensitive, artistic record. The opposite of Prop, Prop’s kind of like the heart and Presets is kind of like the porno magazines under the bed, it’s more of an impulse thing. So, the shows are going to be fucking crazy! It’s going to be nothing like Prop, there’s going to be very little to no gear and dancing girls involved. It’s just going to be rock, we just want to fucking rock! We want to make it flexible in the same way that Prop is and have it organic, but really slamming at the same time.

Club kids will probably get into it as much as the rock kids, cause we’re meshing those two styles. It’ll probably end up being a bunch of synths, drums, a bit of bass and maybe some guitar, which is going to be interesting cause none of us actually play guitar, but I don’t think that’s a problem, cause if you get a guitar and you get an amp, you’re halfway there. The next bit’s just trying to figure out how to make a noise out of it”.

Keep your eye on Presets; they’re set to take this country by storm!

Kim Moyes will be DJing this weekend at ‘One Last Breath’, click HERE for more info.