Cut Copy // Zonoscope

 

http://www.spin.com/sites/spin.com/files/101101-cut-copy-1.jpg

 

Australian trio Cut Copy scored an international breakthrough with their 2008 album, In Ghost Colours, and after a few teaser tour dates this summer, they're poised to release its follow-up. SPIN can exclusively reveal that it'll be called Zonoscope and will arrive in stores on February 8 (US).

 

The band's Tim Hoey tells SPIN the album artwork, which uses an image of New York City engulfed in a waterfall (created by the late Japanese photo montage artist Tsunehisa Kimura), is emblematic of where his band has netted out with their new tunes."We certainly are using all sorts of electronic instruments, more synthesizers, computers, all of that, but contrasted with more organic sounds, more organic percussion," says Hoey. "Since [Frontman] Dan [Whitford] came across the image a few months ago, he's stuck with it, and thought that it summed up what we wanted to get across." Kimura also designed a post-apocalyptic vision of Sydney, Australia, for the cover of fellow Aussie band Midnight Oil's 1984 album Red Sails in the Sunset, and Hoey says Cut Copy actually ended up working with the artist's wife to track down his original print.

 

As for the music itself, the new behind the scenes video from the studio reveals Cut Copy tinkering with loads of digital noises and synthesizers -- an interesting revelation considering, "Where I'm Going," the first taste of Zonoscope which was released as a free download earlier this year, veered into a more conventional-sounding, guitar-bass-drums combination and seemed to indicate a departure from the sleek, electronic-laced sound of In Ghost Colours." I knew it might throw people a little bit, but at the end of the day it still sounded like a Cut Copy song," says Hoey. "It's got a pop music element, which runs throughout every Cut Copy song or album. I thought it was actually great to put out first from the record." But, Hoey revealed, it's another version of "Where I'm Going" that made the final cut. "There's actually a new mix of that song on the album which is more like the original vision we had for that song: more chant-y, kind of tribal, and probably less pop than the version that came out a couple of months ago," he explains. Hoey also feels the raw warehouse space in Melbourne, littered with discarded vintage recording gear and instruments, that was used to record Zonoscope had a profound influence on the finished product. In the middle of winter, they loaded in all of their own equipment, set up exactly how they wanted to, and cut themselves off from the world. "There was no Internet in there, barely any heat, nothing, just f***ing industrial Melbourne," he says. "We just knew we could kind of go into there and not feel pressured. We were just kind of locked in there by ourselves, and we couldn't have had it sounding how it sounds without us going in there."

 

Between now and February, Hoey says he and his bandmates will be reinventing their live show and figuring out how to bring Zonoscope to life onstage. "We've created this new world with the record, and we certainly want the new live show to represent that, to take it into new territory," he says. The band will also sort through songs that didn't make the cut, try to finish some, and figure out how to possibly release even more music in 2011. (Via Spin)

 

Sufjan Stevens and Cut Copy just a few months apart? MELT. SWOON. The anticipation for this is ridiculous, although In Ghost Colours will be extremely difficult to top. It's definitely one of my favourite records of the last decade. SWOON. It's coming out on my birthday... definitely makes a change from the usual crap released in February. AGH. AMAZING.

Edited November 2, 201014 yr by ▲▲▲

MUCH EXCITE. :o

 

You're correct about In Ghost Colours, it was a masterpiece and has made me really excited about this one too. Loving the artwork and the font too.

 

I had no idea that Where I'm Going had been released, I shall have to hunt that down ASAP methinks.

The cover is just wow

 

I had a bit of mixed feelings towards In Ghost Colours. It was good anyway.

 

 

Oh gawsh I LOVED that album so much, I hope this is better than IGC <3

 

PS. That cover - ohmygod.

Probably the best artwork I've seen for months. :wub:

Absolutely loved "In Ghost Colours" so I am hugely excited for this.

I'm actually listening to "Far Away" as I write this! :D

Bright Like Neon Love & In Ghost Colours are brilliant so I expect this new album to be at least the same level.

The artwork is impressive!

Brilliant cover that.

Edited November 3, 201014 yr by Thomsen

:w00t:

 

LOVED In Ghost Colours. Hope this isn't another MGMT - Congratulations indie electro followup disaster.

The layout of the cover reminds me a bit of Tangerine Dream - Hyperborea:

 

http://www.millisong.com/images_albums_big/38971.jpg

Leaked.

I enjoy the Fleetwood Mac inspiration, specifically Tango in the Night, so it's a fun listen. But overall it disappoints. Blink and You'll Miss a Revolution is nice tho.

I was disappointed initially but it's actually pretty brilliant. Sun God! I love all these recent epic closing tracks, it sits quite nicely with both Impossible Soul and Invisible Light. Pharaohs & Pyramids/Blink and You'll Miss a Revolution, Amazing.

 

It's no In Ghost Colours though, but nothing is.

Strange Nostalgia... SOUNDS LIKE BARBIE GIRL I SWEAR!

THAT Barbie Girl??!

heart.

Cut Copy

Zonoscope

[Modular; 2011]

 

8.6

 

Cut Copy are Australian, and it's summer in Australia right now. So if it feels a little weird listening to an album of euphoric, starry-eyed dance-rock on earbuds while you're scraping snow-grit off your windshield, keep in mind: Somewhere in the world, someone is probably road-tripping to a swimming hole with this album playing, or eating a popsicle, or playing catch with their dogs while it blasts out of a car stereo or nearby boombox. By the time summer arrives for those of us in the northern hemisphere, we'll know these songs by heart and be able to sing along loudly.

 

Back when this group released 2004's Bright Like Neon Love, the idea of backing dazed, introverted indie pop with a utopian house thump was still relatively novel. And though that sound has since inspired legions of followers and copycats, still no one does it quite like Cut Copy themselves. 2008's steamrolling In Ghost Colours was an album of anthems; tracks like "Hearts on Fire" and "Lights and Music" were transcendent pop that stuck in heads for days. But Zonoscope is something different. It's an album-album that puts serious work into movements and transitions, and it works best when you hear it all in one chunk. That doesn't mean it's Cut Copy's OK Computer; it just means that the group has put more work into building a vast, rolling landscape rather than a series of peaks.

 

Zonoscope opens with a blast of woozy ecstasy in the form of "Need You Now", the sort of track where you don't even realize how much tension the group has built up until they release it, and ends with "Sun God", a marathon 15-minute groove that slowly morphs into a tranced-out Giorgio Moroder thud. In between those two tracks, Cut Copy build a long-form piece of work that moves between genres and ideas and moods without ever sacrificing its dancefloor momentum.

 

"Take Me Over" works in a bouncy hook from Fleetwood Mac's mid-80s party-staple "Everywhere" and gives a sly nod to their countrymen Men at Work, turning down-moments into playful exercises in irresistible cheeseball melody. "Where I'm Going" is a twinkly, faraway sigh of a song that could pass for Washed Out if it wasn't for the titanic Gary Glitter drum-stomp powering it. And "Pharaohs & Pyramids" may be the greatest thing here; it uses the band's melodic gifts and the sense of yearning in frontman Dan Whitford's voice and applies them to a classic Chicago house anthem, deploying its keyboard blips, synth-strings, and programmed cowbells at the exact right moments, building into a climactic cresting swoop.

 

Compared to the last two albums, Zonoscope has precious little guitar crunch, which makes it hard to even call Cut Copy a dance-rock band anymore. And that's for the best-- not just because that combination seems like a less thrilling prospect in 2011 than perhaps it once did, but also because Cut Copy have the architecture of dance music down perfectly and the confidence to execute the genre's moves with absolute precision. Even in the dead of winter, Zonoscope does its job beautifully. Imagine how it'll sound when you don't have to layer up to go outside. - Pitchfork

HMV really are useless. The day of release and only two in stock? Ridiculous. Rough Trade ftw.

I love it! First heard it last week and loved it straight away. The first half of the album is simply awesome, and Need You Now is probably the single best song they've ever done. With the exception of Sun God, the second half is less instant and takes more plays to get into, but it only took me a few plays.

 

Have to admit I was preparing myself for a bit of disappointment with this album, just because it was always going to be incredibly tough to follow In Ghost Colours, but this is a more than worthy follow-up. It's every bit as good as I hoped, and more.

I'm liking the album but my enjoyment is utterly ruined by the fact that my copy appears to have 2 second gaps between the tracks. :(