Originally starting under rather humble means as the bedroom recording project of Melbourne, Australia-based designer and DJ Dan Whitford, Cut Copy has become an international sensation over the past decade with the release of four albums, 1,000 live shows, and a number of appearances at major festivals. The members of the band have also DJ’ed and remixed the material of a number of artists, and started their own dance music label, Cutter Records, which has released a number of dance albums over the last couple of years, as well.
Recently, the members of Cut Copy announced that they would be releasing a compilation of their hometown’s thriving underground electronic dance music scene. The compilation, which they titled Oceans Apart offers listeners a rather ambitious survey of Melbourne’s party crews, label rosters and solo artists in a continuous mix, which the band was responsible for. So in many ways, the actual album reflects what you’d hear in a Melbourne dance club.
The first single off the compilation, NO ZU’s “Raw Vis Vision” was a funky, propulsive track that features chanted vocals, tribal drumming, sinuous synths, old school break beats, warn blasts of horns and whistles. And around the two minute mark of that song, the track possessed bursts of melodic synth that will not only just remind you of early house music but of Cut Copy, as well.
Ara Koufax’s “Brenda” is the second and latest single off the compilation and the track starts off with several layers of undulating synths, flashes of cymbals, and vocals that sound vaguely Eastern. The addition of keyboards around the 4:000 minute subtly reminds the listener that although the song is a bit more down tempo than say, the first single, that it’s still a house music track – and that it’s still quite danceable.
In some way, the track seems as though it could have been released in the early 80s and was forgotten until some enterprising and knowledgeable DJ was digging in the crates at a used record store, came across it and started playing it as part of their DJ set,
