In between the lineup of au currant youngsters and international heavies aboard this year’s national Big Day Out festival, fans could’ve been forgiven for performing a double-take at the addition of long dormant rave veterans Itch-E & Scratch-E. After all, the duo of famed producers Paul Mac and Andy Rantzen had been dead quiet since their 2001 opus It Is What It Isn’t, leaving the Australian dance music community to fend for itself whilst the duo got to work on other projects, both creative and commercial. But nonetheless, this throwback to when whistles and candy necklaces were an acceptable accessory for a Saturday night out was genuine, and after nearly ten years out of the game, Itch-E & Scratch-E returned at the summer festival with hands in the air and their lasers set to fun.

Having spent so long on the sidelines, one would imagine that such a high profile comeback would do horrors on the duo’s nerves, and according to Mac, that’s a fair assesment. “Of course we were scared about it, we were shitting ourselves,” he says as gleeful laughter erupts between the pair. “I thought about it and figured that if the Big Day Out kids were around 20 years old then they would’ve been about five when Sweetness & Light came out. So that was definitely on our minds. But I think it was kind of good because we hate recreating the old tracks because it’s just too difficult, so it gave us this clean slate to prepare a new album of material and play that. So whether they had heard our hype or they were just there to see Girl Talk afterwards, everybody got something new.”

By all reports, Mac and Rantzen’s Itch-E & Scratch-E resurrection was one of this year’s festival highlights, with crowds evidently ready to welcome back the pair of star-gazing clubbers. The run of festival shows served as validation of Rantzen and Mac’s original decision to emerge from the wilderness and start working.

“It was late last year and I guess we just got the feeling that people were actually interested in hearing us again,” Rantzen explains of their reconciliation. “We had been approached several times about reforming for some one-off nostalgia shows, but we thought that it would be more interesting to come back together, see if we could still make a track and try to do something new. In the end we managed to make about eight or nine of those, so I guess we did it.”

With the Big Day Out a feather proudly perched in their cap, Mac and Rantzen have turned their attention to making a big splash in 2010, in which they plan to make up for lost time with a new album, the delightfully titled Hooray For Everything!!, due out on July 23rd.

Taking the recording process as organically as they could, Mac explains Hooray For Everything!! was built over some endless late nights that would find the duo boozing on at the studio.

“We would only get together in the studio about once a week and that ended up becoming our favourite part of every week, it was just a lot of fun,” he says as they both chuckle over shared hangovers. “What I’ve been doing lately has either been something Top 40 based or a commercial thing on a deadline, so I really felt that freedom of being a 20 year old in my first band again and just not giving a fuck”.

As they prepare for their grand homecoming though, one thing still troubles the duo, and that’s how their return to the clubs will be heralded following their years in the wilderness. After all, since 1995 when Mac and Rantzen rocked the ARIA awards, winning the fledgling best dance release that year and also thanking “the ecstasy dealers of Sydney” in their acceptance speech, Australian dance culture has blossomed, with electronic acts like The Presets and Empire Of The Sun receiving certified pinup status.

“It’s a weird feeling for us,” Mac confirms with a grin. “We never felt like we were part of any scene or movement in Australia, we were just trying to make amazing music. But now it’s a big deal, things have really exploded.”

Backing up Mac, Rantzen pays homage to the artists who’ve fostered the dance music market in the country, saying that he and Mac would never have “written a single note of new music” were it not for acts like Cut Copy, Pnau and the aforementioned Presets. “15 years ago we never would’ve predicted that the word ‘electro’ would be in common currency, so we owe these guys for our resurgence,” he says. “Coming back to a scene so big is just crazy for us.”

Itch-E & Scratch-E’s Hooray For Everything is out through Ministry Of Sound on July 23rd. As an exclusive offer for inthemix and Sound Alliance readers, you can grab the album over at this link and receive $5 off the purchase price. Just enter the unique code HOORAY. Nice, right?