Music Hall of Willamsburg, NY
Date: 6/4/08
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“Hello Brooklyn, we’re The Presets,” says Julian Hamilton after the first song of their sold-out show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in New York City.

Uh, yeah. We know. We’re only packed so tight we can smell our neighbor’s freshly applied American Crew. Eventually we may also feel the trickle of each other’s beers down the backs of our calves. However, the Sydney-based electro group, The Presets, are all about that full sensory experience. Their set started off with a solitary light illuminating Kim Moyes’ drum kit; the trigger of a single chord; then a feverish escalation of noise that culminates in a blinding burst of flashing lights. Within a minute, The Presets have transformed an ordinary music venue into a high-energy club, complete with pounding bass beats and a mass of gyrating bodies.

Hamilton and Moyes are only two people, creating monster noise. Their performance is distinctly theatrical, defined by a menacing, industrial sound, enhanced at key moments by a flood of hellish red stage light. Moyes’ vigorous drumming sutures together raw, heavy chords and riffs on the keyboard and synthesizers, as well as samples and backing tracks. Hamilton’s voice is modulated a handful of different ways to give each song its own character: amplifying delays, assailing stutter-effects, and other distortion settings to make him sound like some kind of synthesized baritone demon. With intensifying snare rolls and brightening sound modulations — making us feel like the noise is climbing inside our heads— they bring their songs to disorienting climax, creating such tension that our ears beg for release.

The Presets have no shortage of moments like these as they run through a number of their most popular songs, including “Down Down Down,” “Are You The One,” and “My People.” Towards the end of the set, as Hamilton sings over an explosive, intoxicating house beat and crunching bass — the room going black with every hit of the crash cymbal and the floor shaking with the dancing crowd — he clutches his microphone, raising it into the air like it’s flying away. It’s as if this noise is bigger than him, and even he can’t contain it.

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http://www.thepresets.com