AMS album of the week: Free Your Mind

Cut Copy stated on the standout track of their previous album, “Blink and you’ll miss a revolution”. The one and a half years that have passed since then are, in the big scheme of things, a blink. The Australian synthpop quartet now return with their fourth album Free Your Mind, which whilst not quite a revolution, is certainly a revelation. Bad puns aside, Free Your Mind will take you a on a nostalgic journey to late 80s acid-house. This album saw the band take a new approach to writing music, with frontman Dan Whitford composing the foundations of a new song every day for four months. He then took his creations back to the band to piece together the album. To push their sound to new psychedelic levels, producer David Fridmann (Tame Impala/ Flaming Lips) was sought out for mixing duties. When the product was polished, the launch of the album was teased by erecting giant billboards in a variety of exotic locations; Mexico, Australia, Chile, and (obviously) Wales. And what did these billboards say? Well, Free Your Mind, of course. Those giant billboards emphasize the statement the band is trying to make: Free Your Mind isn’t simply the title of the record; it is the ethos that they want listeners to adopt. The band themselves describe the album as a “fantasy of the next youth revolution”, drawing inspiration from the cultural explosions birthed from the fallout of the Vietnam War and the reign of Maggy Thatcher. This feel-good vibe of liberal hedonism runs through the record. Its effect on your mood can be staggering. And whilst listening to it hasn’t converted me into a fully-fledged hippy, I do feel more predisposed to buying “tie-dyed” products. The album kicks-off with the title track, and you can’t help but compare the sound to Primal Scream - the rhythm is locked into the stabbing keyboard chords and there are vocal samples that shriek early 90s house. From this point, the album traverses different dance environments. There are more mellow moments (‘Dark Corners & Mountain Tops, Walking In The Sky), and some more obvious dancefloor classics (‘In Memory Capsule’, ‘Footsteps’). I’m not a huge fan of the use of the short linking tracks, but oh well, by the time my current favourite - ‘Meet Me In The House Of Love (DAT SAX)’ - comes on I’m too busy dancing to care. For me though, Free Your Mind doesn’t reach the same dizzy heights as their previous record, Zonoscope. This is probably due to the fond, drunken memories I have of dancing along to those tracks when I caught the band at Bestival, a few years back. I’ll have to catch them on their next tour. Oh, and one important piece of advice if you’re going to see them - don’t forgot your dancing shoes.