The soundtrack to Cut Copy’s slow, effortless ascent from underground sensation to festival favourites could only be one of their own songs. Leading members of the new wave of smooth electronic rock, the Australian trio established themselves as the undisputed creative needlepoint of their chosen sound with their 2004 debut Bright Like Neon Love.

Four years later, just before the fickle hipsters jumped ship, they struck gold with the anthem-laden In Ghost Colours, which took them to Lollapalooza and a massive tour with Daft Punk. It also served as a reminder why MGMT, Empire Of The Sun and even Calvin Harris owe them a mafia-sized debt. Now they’ve game-changed again with the epic Zonoscope.
“The making of the album took many stages” explains the band’s Ben Browning. “We started with a bunch of songs, just demos, most of which grew out of extended jams.”
Following their own course meant turning down lucrative support slots with Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails and Lady Gaga. They ended up with a daring monolith of an album, light on the bubblegum catchiness of ‘Hearts On Fire’ and heavy on motorik, half-man/half-machine workouts, with pitstops along the way at Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and The Velvet Undergound.
Above all, it’s a brave record.
“We really set out to create a soundworld, which is where the title is from, and it inspired the tone of the album once we came up with it” says Ben. “Stuff like Bowie’s Low was a major influence. We wanted it to be a conceptualised journey from start to finish, as opposed to a collection of tracks to browse through on iTunes.”
Cut Copy are passionate about the Australian music scene. Van She, Midnight Juggernauts and The Presets are just three of the acts vociferously championed by them.
“All those guys are great friends with us and great bands. We’ve worked with them all. The Avalanches before us were one of our biggest influences. Australia itself is a such a creative place, particularly Melbourne. There are loads of opportunities in art, music, film and writing for kids to do their thing.”
They’re also one of the hardest toiling outfits in pop, with a touring schedule that would put many artists to shame.
“We work the opposite to most bands, in that record sales and success are only useful to us in terms of gauging people’s reactions for our live show,” claims Ben. “We’ve had a lot of success as a live band despite taking years between albums, and it’s how we’ve built ourselves up really, it’s where we started and the records have just reinforced it a bit. It goes to show that these days you can be a hugely successful band without ever putting a record out.”