The Dissociatives

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The Dissociatives is an Australian band formed in April 2004 by Daniel Johns , the frontman of Silverchair and Paul Mac, a producer from the Australian electronic scene .

Band history

In 1997 Daniel Johns and Paul Mac , a little more than ten years older, met for the first time when the latter showed his skills for a remix of the Silverchair single "Freak" (from the album "Freak Show"). In contrast to the "teen star" Daniel Johns, he had a classical education at the Music Conservatory in Sydney and was considered one of the pioneers of the Australian electro scene. He composed film music, worked with Baz Luhrmann and landed his first number 1 hit in Australia in 2001 with the single Just The Thing . That same year, he was named Producer of the Year at the Australian Dance Awards. His debut album “3000 Feet High” won gold and an ARIA Award.

Daniel Johns quickly made friends with the resourceful musician and producer and so Paul also took care of the special effects on the following Silverchair albums "Neon Ballroom" and "Diorama". Mac also took over the keyboards at some Silverchair concerts and finally the two friends recorded an EP in 2000 with the prophetic title I Can't Believe It's Not Rock .

Their debut album, which lies somewhere between experimental pop and constructed art rock, simply called The Dissociatives , caused one of the biggest surprises in the music scene on the fifth continent in 2004. After just one week, the extraordinary pop album waved gold and the Dissociatives were nominated for six ARIA Awards, including in the categories "album of the year" and "best group". In May 2005, the debut of The Dissociatives , which was celebrated in the Australian Rolling Stone as "electro pop symphony" and immediately adorned the title, appeared in the rest of the world.

The opener of the album We're Much Preferred Customers , in its electronic playfulness, refers to the eighties, but less to the usual suspects than to eccentric outsiders and intellectual aesthetes like Thomas Dolby , Scritti Politti and XTC . The love for the Beatles , omnipresent in today's music scene, can hardly be overheard among the Dissociatives: especially with the singles Somewhere Down The Barrel and Young Man, Old Man they indulge in Beatlesque harmonies. In addition, director James Hackett has given them extremely bizarre video clips: a mixture of animation and digital cinema , of a Monty Python silhouette and the gloomy, macabre imagery of Tim Burton . The videos received several awards / nominations.

The band is also characterized by avant-garde ideas and ironic breaks with the mainstream, which also make the Dissociatives somewhat post-modern descendants of the art rock legend Split Enz .

Discography

  • 2004: The Dissociatives

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