The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

The flesh suit guy is onstage and he's dancing like an invertebrate. Decked out in a cream-colored unitard and thick, black shades, he is the embodiment of this strange scene. The Presets have one more song to play, and the temperature inside the Fine Line is far past boiling. It has the aroma of meat burps and that disease that makes people smell like maple syrup. There is a creepy old man trying to dance on me. And the floor is shaking so viciously it feels like it might give way at any moment, forcing a throng of hipsters who look like they stepped off of a two year-old cover of Nylon fashion magazine to continue their wretched dancing sprawled out on the basement floor. Covered in booze. Covered in sweat. Covered in longing.

In a word, it's "manic."

With columns of rainbow fluorescent lights and a bipolar strobe light, there is the mood of a late 80's rave, but with a severe lack of illegal drugs and unabashed groping. The groping part could likely be the unpleasant side effect of the Presets' apparent trance-inducing prowess. There's a 96.5 percent chance the Australian duo could break into a synth-heavy version of the Macarena and the first 13 rows of people would still fucking lose it.

Wearing an irradiated-looking day glo orange suit jacket, Julian Hamilton is prancing about foppishly, making gestures akin to jazz hands. Flailing his arms to his New Wave-ish techno, he heads back to his vocoder to make erotic robot noises that really should have been the soundtrack to Tron. Meanwhile, a fiend on the sidelines is whipping around with glow sticks poking out of the top of his head like devil horns.

What really makes it work are the live drums so often absent in club music. With Kim Moyes by Hamilton's side trading his high hat duties for spins behind the keyboard, the Presets rage through "Down Down Down," "Girl (You Chew My Mind Up)," and "Are You The One?" along with "Talk Like That" from the band's new album, Apocalypso, and others.

Cut Copy's set is decidedly less fantastic. Here's the cringe-worthy blow-by-blow:

Rampant hand claps: minus 10 points

Stevie Nicks song dedication: minus 5 points

Continued overuse of handclaps: minus 10 additional points

Seemingly choreographed "point at the sky" gestures: minus 8 points

Moments of sonic disillusionment: plus 4 points

Vocalized demands to "Get our dance on": oh my god

Promotion of plaid shirt-wearing indie heartthrob stereotype: minus infinity

Depending on how many points Cut Copy started out with, they probably aren't going to pass popstar school. Maybe they should try degrees in sociology.

Cut Copy sounds like a danceable Smiths, but with a lower douchebag factor, or maybe an Air for the club kids instead of its target audience, the stay-at-home mopers and drinkers of red wine. The scruffy Canadians stand like Alpine statues, remaining immobile aside from the aforementioned handclaps. It's like listening to their album surrounded by sweaty twenty-somethings in tight pants instead of a real concert. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Once listeners get past the fact that every song seems to have the same tempo, the music has its pleasure. The tunes have a certain Chaka Khan production quality buried deep in the core of its glacier pop that remains effective in getting the crowd to continue to test the endurance of the dance floor. And Dan Whitford's acrylic blend tenor is so sleek and emotionless it sounds like it might actually be seeping from the plastic, painted lips of a department store mannequin. It's an interesting approach to songs about love and heartbreak.

During "Zap Zap," Whitford's hair is blowing from a fake breeze. On the staircase beside the stage, the Presets' Moyes is leading a barely legal brunette upstairs for a better view. His work is done. But for the legions on the dance floor, the night is far from over.