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Five reason why we're still not over The Presets

3 July 2017 | 7:00 am | Rosie Rae

Ahead of their special performance at Maroochy Music & Visual Arts Festival, we get nostalgic about Australia's favourite dance duo, The Presets!

One of the most influential dance groups to emerge in the early 2000s was none other than iconic dance duo, THE PRESETS talented Australians who led the pack when it came to forward thinking dance and electronic music. Since The Presets burst onto the scene, it was clear that their sound would leave a mark on Australia's highly impressionable youth. The Presets' innate desire to infiltrate popular culture and get people moving remains an unstoppable force. Anytime, anywhere a Presets track is dropped, you can’t help but move to their tasty melodic bangers.

It’s safe to say that The Presets have had a massive impact on all of us here at Purple Sneakers over the years. From the early high school parties, to some of this country’s biggest festival stages, The Presets' anthems are a recipe for sweat. 

Are you feeling nostalgic yet? We're just getting started...

We wanted to put together a list of reasons why we never quite moved on from this infectious duo.

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Firstly, we can't forget those nostalgic memories. It feels as though everybody has at least one fond of dancing to The Presets at an early 2000s party. Tracks by The Presets link back to some of the Purple Sneakers alumni's earliest experiences of dance music. Rhythmic, eccentric, euphoric, and incredibly contagious, suddenly a whole new world of sound existed, beyond the 4-piece band, and we could couldn't get enough.

The Presets are among a stellar list of formative 00s dance acts. Not only were they influencers of Australia's burgeoning electronic scene, The Presets establish a scene for contemporary dance music to blossom in Australia. Their rhythmic bangers inspired movers and shakers like ANNA LUNOE and NINA LAV VEGAS. The Presets inadvertently laid the foundations for the talented acts such as FLUME to dominate national airwaves and break through internationally.

Since the early days of KRAFTWERK, it was clear that electronica had the ability to engage and captivate audiences. One of the biggest misconceptions around dance music has been that electronic sounds can't make you feel in the same way that acoustic bands can. Then along came The Presets to blow that fallacy out of the water once and for all. If you were ever going to fall in love on the dance floor at 2am, you better believe that The Presets would provide the ideal soundtrack. Their haunting bangers have the ineffable ability to connect people through emotionally charged melodies and hypnotic rhythm.

The Presets quite literally started a dance movement. Suddenly, electronic artists no longer existed only on the periphery in Australia. The Presets not only managed broke through the grunge of the 90s, they also shifted helped move music into a new age, using portable technology. Whilst electronic equipment was still pretty exxie, The Presets were determined to use their tech savvy brains to demonstrate just how primal the instinct to dance really is.

The Presets are certainly no stranger to epic performances, having played on the stages of Splendour, Big Day Out, as well as Coachella in the US. They've been a driving force in electronic music shifting electronica from, bedrooms to sweaty clubs and even festival stages. As the desire to dance grew, so too did the size and spectacle of the stages. As dance music shifted to the forefront of entertainment, festivals seemed to be the ultimate set for a release. The Presets brought something different to every show, and pioneered with their incredible audio visual accompaniments.

The Presets will be bringing their captivating live show to stage near you very soon, with a special set at Maroochy Music & Visual Arts Festival this August. Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come!

Maroochy Music & Visual Arts Festival

August 26th, 2017

Old Horton Park Golf Course, Maroochydore

Words by Rosie Rae

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