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If you could imagine a yearbook for 2005’s School of Rock, The Presets would stand out like a jet black ink blot on the page: defying categorization in their recorded work, exceeding expectations above and beyond in sweat-drenched live shows that leave the competition for dead, releasing videos and artwork as beautiful as they are twisted. They would be crowned the official class odd bods. And they like it that way.

Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes share a skewed, singular vision that reassembles pop music into a streamlined, sexy, scary creature, lurking in a corner entirely of its own.

Welcome to the world of Beams, debut long-player from The Presets. It’s where the wild things are.

Rewind some ten years. Two class outcasts shackled to their study of classical music (“Jules looked like a raver with baggy pants and old school Pumas” says Kim, “I looked like an old man in skivvies, vests and corduroy trousers “) meet at college. In a sea of squares they blow a gasket discovering their shared love of new music.

“By day we battled with Beethoven, Stockhausen and 18th century harmony,” explains Julian, “by night we were out dancing to the Pet Shop Boys, New Order and Acid House.” No stone was left unturned in their passion, running the gamut from beer swilling rock and introspective Indie pop to high-camp Euro disco.

Like, duh, they had to make music together.

Of course all good things take time, in the case of The Presets a number of years and bands. Gestation began in a jam session after practice with their old band Prop; Kim and Jules uncovered a sound from outer space, far from their regular band, but closer to their hearts.

The sound was twenty-something years of misinformation, of high and low culture crammed into the brains of these two ne’er do wells: TV ads and school hymns, World Series cricket chants and John Coltrane, gamelan orchestras and glass players, pounding amyl house and sci-fi soundtracks.

In the jungle a monster had awoken: the sound of The Presets had been created.

The first seeds to be sprout were on 2003’s Blow Up EP, which painted dark dance circles around the eyes of seven rock songs, creating a new genre of its own. In a pleasingly contrary mode the band followed with the pristine melancholy of 2004’s Girl and the Sea EP, featuring detached vocals, shimmering synths and swooping pads.

Along the way the duo created a live show that straddles both rock and dance circuits in its infectious, sweat soaked sensibilities. From opening for the likes of Wolfmother, Colder, the Faint and the Dissociatives to playing to packed houses of their own, the Presets have officially come, seen and conquered (not necessarily in that order).

“We were so disappointed when we saw electro acts or DJs because something incredibly important was always missing,” explains Kim. “Julian's performing antics are unique. We are good live because we are musicians and performers first and foremost. Oh, and lets not forget ‘The Drama’! At the moment it’s a real anything goes policy in terms of style. Our fans like it too. They want to jump around and act dumb like we do: its called FUN!”

A sense of drama is no stranger to the Presets. A cursory glance at the cover art for Beams suggests a super-staged and unreal world, unparalleled since the cocaine castle fantasies of Fleetwood Mac sleeves from the late 70s. Not to suggest that The Presets are anything other than modern. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, the futuristic beast that is Beams, track by track by The Presets themselves:

BEAMS

1. Steamworks
An imaginary sonic escapade into the underbelly of the underworld, “named after the world’s largest gay sauna in San Fran” (Kim). Julian: “We wondered what house music would sound like if it was written by coal miners. This is the result: hard yakka house music for hard yakka men.”

2. Are You The One?
The next single. Julian: “English Soccer Hoodlum meets Brazilian house music.” So Kim, are we the one? “Of course you are not the one. There are many ones!”

3. Down Down Down
As recently heard and seen on a media platform near you. Kim: “I have no idea what Jules is singing about in this one.” Jules: “The result of a drunken war with our machines.”

4. Girl and The Sea
Up there with the Scandinavians in terms of pristine melancholy. Jules: “You've gotta write some tunes for the sheilas, right?”

5. Black Background
Like an incidental synth-out from a lost 80s detective series. Jules: “A lone biker with a massive beard and sunglasses riding a chopper through the desert at sunset.”

6. Worms
Kim: ”This was on the demo which got us signed.” Jules: “The ghost in the synth is singing over demented hip hop.”

7. Kitty in The Middle
Jules: “I was stuck in a hotel room on Sunset Boulevard; the city inspired me to write this ode the modern male: in all his weak, pathetic, shameful, womanising glory.”

8. Hill Stuck
Moody, musical fog instrumental. “Phill Stucky is a friend of mine who played trombone on our record,” says Kim. “I took the P and Y off his name to get the title.”

9. Girl (You Chew My Mind Up)

Stop start pounder from a three night continuous session. “We realised it had a good energy,” says Jules, “but were just happy to finally have a song title with brackets in it (like Backstreet Boys' Don’t Play Games (With My Heart))”.

10. I Go Hard, I Go Home
Jules: “Mindless music written for mindless people” Kim: “We wrote this one the day after Bang Gang’s first birthday party. When we weren’t dancing like demons we were talking on the dancefloor about how simple club music has to be to be really pounding.” And so it does: all killer, all dancefloor filler.

11. Bad Up Your Betterness Where things take an agit-rockier turn. “A song about packing your bags, grabbing your girl, burning down your parents’ house and driving into the desert.” On a lost highway, presumably?

12. Beams
A sophisticated finale to musical proceedings – cyclical turns of strings, acoustic guitar (courtesy Daniel Johns) and horns. So what exactly are ‘Beams’? Jules: “Beams of light are very sexy - they're bright and strong, yet so fragile you can cut them with your hand. Spotlight beams always catch the bad guy, laser beams from aliens eyes burn through human flesh, beams from an archaeologist’s torch light up cave paintings that haven't been viewed for five thousand years, an infra-red beam from your remote control means you don't have to get up to change the channel.” Kim: “This is our greatest achievement to date.”

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