By Amrit Singh & Brandon Stosuy
Our trek into Indio went so smoothly this year that we’ve both become paranoid about something going incredibly wrong at any moment, but so far we’ve made it through without broken bones or spirits. In fact, even though the day started with extreme lines and heat, once we passed the impressively green grass into the actual grounds and started watching bands (and people), the weather seemed to ease up incrementally: By the time we witnessed Paul McCartney nail classic after classic, we were freezing and felt vindicated by our decision to wear jeans. But there was much music before that.

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The Australian Coachella-bound duo of Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes are back with a Eva Husson-directed video for Apocalypso‘s “If I Know You.” Their second album’s been out almost a year — this is the fifth, final single. The song’s accompanying clip, which follows a kid as he discards his shirt and dances his way through a city, has a lonesome feeling to it despite his energy and the fact that he picks up some partners along the way. It was shot in L.A., which you’ll be able to tell from the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, etc. It’s the kid on the right who sets it all in motion:

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Congratulations Kris Moyes, you’re one of few video directors to get a Stereogum tag (it’s really small right now, sorry mate). Kris has proven to be the go-to guy for most every indie-oriented Australian act we write about, from Architecture In Helsinki to Cut Copy to Sia; he’s turned himself into a regular Patrick Daughters over there. Of course his selection to helm the Presets clip for “My People” is as much an encore as it is a bit of nepotism: Kris is brother to Kim, the beat-building half of Aussie electro duo the Presets (i.e. the one with black hair that isn’t singing). All that said, the video itself isn’t anywhere near as epic as “Heart It Races” was for AiH: no exotic locales, no glow in the dark dancing demons. Instead it’s one set and a walk along the moon for the sleazy, shadowy club-punk track, Kris’s contribution coming in a kaleidescope of camera effects taking it from one-shot bore to something fragmented and, well, a little less boring.

The Presets’ “My People” 12″ is out 12/18 via Modular.

Our fondest Presets memory comes from SXSW ’06, watching the Aussie duo juice up a small but loud crowd of diehard afterpartyers at Factory People around 5AM, on the heels of a similarly intimate and sweaty set from a lipstick smeared Beth Ditto and the Gossip (it looked like this). In the time since, the Moyes name has stayed afloat, both via beat man Kim Moyes’s solo project KIM (also Modular-ly enhanced) and his brother Kris’s Aussie artist video directing (see: Architecture In Helsinki, Sia). Now Julian’s bringing his good name back in the mix, the Presets delivering their first new material since last year’s Beams. Their debut brought forth a shadowy electro punk, and they’re not swabbing the decks of that sound anytime soon. Instead “My People” pushes that industrial, sleazy sound a little further, another fist-pumping chant session of what they once dubbed “spazzdancefagrock.” Hear it at MySpace.

The “My People” 12″ is out 12/18 via Modular.

[Presets pic from SXSW '06]

Watching four perfectly average, somewhat awkward white boys sidle up to a buffet of vintage synthesizers, I questioned coming to a place like Bowery for a band like Hot Chip. Though a devotee of the Brits’ laptop squirgle pop, I feared a set of lifeless sample pad triggering and repertoire regurgitation. Despite the best efforts of their equipment (and with a little help from an oft-compared band), Hot Chip overcame a night fraught with complication and left its audience screaming for more.

More Blue Man Group than Kraftwerk, Hot Chip’s stage appeal is predicated on perfect proportions of crooked-toothed grins, somber intensity, and convulsive maraca shaking. With an unspoken, easy rapport, each Chip’s presence completed the picture of a true “band” beyond the bleeps. Clapping hands, stripping shirts, flailing arms … Hot Chip brought genuine spirit to its cheeky bedroom electro funk.

The set wasn’t without problems: the band contended with the severe illness of drummer Felix Martin and an incessantly malfunctioning rig. LCD Soundsystem to the rescue. Filling in on songs he learned two hours earlier, Soundsystem ace Pat Mahoney pulverized drum samples and elicited stage wide smiles. If you’re wondering who to call when your sound guy can’t navigate your rig’s morass of cords, take a cue from Hot Chip and call out James Murphy. He rectified the situation right quick.

Rebounding from a series of momentum-sucking, mid-set sound checks, the band ramped up the room’s gyration factor with the beefy trance of “And I Was A Boy From School” and “Over and Over” from the forthcoming sophomore release The Warning. Both are destined to be staples at indie rock after-parties all year. Perhaps taking a page from Gibbard & Meloy, Chip’s set peaked with an unexpected Fleetwood Mac cover. “Everywhere” got an audience-approved synth-laced makeover. When the Ballroom is that unified in its adoration and enjoyment, I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.

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